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clare_tan_wenhui's review
4.0
I don't think I can do justice to the author through any lavish praise. The best is to let her know that this book will help others who are coping with helplessness and hopelessness in their lives.
jwsg's review
3.0
In Loss Adjustment, Linda Collins recounts her daughter Victoria’s suicide and her attempt to process and make sense of Victoria’s death. It begins on the morning of Victoria’s suicide, when Collins wakes up to prepare breakfast for Victoria, just like on any other weekday. But when Collins heads into Victoria’s bedroom to rouse her, Victoria isn’t there.
The first 70 pages of Loss Adjustment, where Collins details the blur of activity and her emotions following the discovery of Victoria’s body – speaking to the police, going to the morgue, needing to tell people what happened, Victoria’s wake, the funeral – are gut wrenching and riveting. I was glad I was reading the book at home and not outside; tears were pouring down my face. It was late at night and at one point, my child roused and I went into their room. And as I sat there in the dark, making soft shushing noises, the tears continued to course down my face.
The next 230 pages, where Collins tries to piece together and come to terms with why Victoria committed suicide, were a more mixed experience for me. Collins narrates her efforts to reach out to Victoria’s friends and school, transcribes excerpts from Victoria’s journals, describes her thoughts and emotions as she realizes how little she knew and understood of Victoria’s inner life.
Some parts were thought provoking. Collins reminds us that it’s not easy for parents to have insight into our children’s inner lives unless we pay attention. Victoria started cutting herself when she turned 14, upset that her best friend Sivi, from her condo, moved to Australia, that her group of friends at school couldn’t substitute for Sivi, that she felt like a fish out of water at her international school. Victoria developed social anxiety so crippling that she couldn’t speak up in class even if she wanted to. But her parents never realized any of this. (And the school never flagged this to them, even though Victoria touched on some of these issues with the school counselor.) They never imagined that their beautiful, kind, funny, talented (Victoria was a talented writer) daughter might have any cause for social anxiety or depression.
A counselor Collins sees tells her that as a parent, “you see what you want to see” – that your child is flourishing and moving ahead in life. Collins starts volunteering with a children’s home once a week and her interactions with the kids make her realize that Victoria was comparatively less confident and adept in reading social situations as a participant, and required more handholding to do her homework. But Collins did not see this in Victoria at the time because she did not “interact much with other children in terms of observing them or furthermore, have any knowledge of what was considered appropriate behavior at various stages of development.” Collins realizes in retrospect that two weeks before she took her life, Victoria became more withdrawn, preferring to lie in bed and listen to music. But at the time, wasn’t it natural to assume that this was just typical teenage behavior?
Collins cautions parents that we sometimes get so caught up in settling the tasks of parenting, that we neglect what’s going on inside our kids. About two weeks before Victoria’s death, Victoria spoke about the various events in her life over the years. But Collins was “in a flurry of household chores and worried about getting Vic ready for the start of the new school term” when in retrospect, she wished she had asked Vic why she was talking about these issues and what was going on in her mind. Collins reflects that she was in “the mother mode that [she] thought society expected [her] to be in…always looking to the future, wondering if Vic had done her homework, reminding [her]self to take the clothes out of the drier and fold them, working out what to have for dinner.” Instead, she wishes she had taken a moment to stand back to take a proper look at Victoria.
Yet, I struggled with much of the 230 pages. (To be honest, it feels wrong to critique someone’s attempt to process the death of their only child.) In the past couple of years, I’ve read Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, Nina Riggs’s The Bright Hour, and Julie Yip-William’s The Unwinding of the Miracle. All three deal with their respective authors’ efforts to come to terms with their mortality, after being diagnosed with cancer. Not quite the same issue that Loss Adjustment deals with, but similarly emotional, raw and heartfelt. But where Kalanithi, Riggs and Yip-Williams’s books were achingly beautiful reads, Loss Adjustment fell short for me.
I’m not quite sure what it was. Perhaps Kalanithi, Riggs and Yip-Williams were writing before their death and ultimately focussed on the uplifting – what they were living for in what remaining time they had. Collins, on the other hand, is left to pick up the pieces of an existence where she feels that there is little left to live for. And her response is to imbue (somewhat uncomfortably for me) meaning and significance in everything she sees. A kingfisher sighting, a hat in a tree, a photocopied image of Snow White in Victoria’s drawer – all these are taken signs of Victoria’s continued presence. Memories of incidents that took place before Victoria died take on darker overtones – an infestation of termites in the apartment, the disappearance of flight MH370, the death of their Taoist neighbor. Perhaps it was the prose. Perhaps it was a combination of the two – the same recollections, the same musings rendered more skillfully would have made for a better read.
Read this for a frank discussion of an important topic that doesn’t get as much airing as it should.
The first 70 pages of Loss Adjustment, where Collins details the blur of activity and her emotions following the discovery of Victoria’s body – speaking to the police, going to the morgue, needing to tell people what happened, Victoria’s wake, the funeral – are gut wrenching and riveting. I was glad I was reading the book at home and not outside; tears were pouring down my face. It was late at night and at one point, my child roused and I went into their room. And as I sat there in the dark, making soft shushing noises, the tears continued to course down my face.
The next 230 pages, where Collins tries to piece together and come to terms with why Victoria committed suicide, were a more mixed experience for me. Collins narrates her efforts to reach out to Victoria’s friends and school, transcribes excerpts from Victoria’s journals, describes her thoughts and emotions as she realizes how little she knew and understood of Victoria’s inner life.
Some parts were thought provoking. Collins reminds us that it’s not easy for parents to have insight into our children’s inner lives unless we pay attention. Victoria started cutting herself when she turned 14, upset that her best friend Sivi, from her condo, moved to Australia, that her group of friends at school couldn’t substitute for Sivi, that she felt like a fish out of water at her international school. Victoria developed social anxiety so crippling that she couldn’t speak up in class even if she wanted to. But her parents never realized any of this. (And the school never flagged this to them, even though Victoria touched on some of these issues with the school counselor.) They never imagined that their beautiful, kind, funny, talented (Victoria was a talented writer) daughter might have any cause for social anxiety or depression.
A counselor Collins sees tells her that as a parent, “you see what you want to see” – that your child is flourishing and moving ahead in life. Collins starts volunteering with a children’s home once a week and her interactions with the kids make her realize that Victoria was comparatively less confident and adept in reading social situations as a participant, and required more handholding to do her homework. But Collins did not see this in Victoria at the time because she did not “interact much with other children in terms of observing them or furthermore, have any knowledge of what was considered appropriate behavior at various stages of development.” Collins realizes in retrospect that two weeks before she took her life, Victoria became more withdrawn, preferring to lie in bed and listen to music. But at the time, wasn’t it natural to assume that this was just typical teenage behavior?
Collins cautions parents that we sometimes get so caught up in settling the tasks of parenting, that we neglect what’s going on inside our kids. About two weeks before Victoria’s death, Victoria spoke about the various events in her life over the years. But Collins was “in a flurry of household chores and worried about getting Vic ready for the start of the new school term” when in retrospect, she wished she had asked Vic why she was talking about these issues and what was going on in her mind. Collins reflects that she was in “the mother mode that [she] thought society expected [her] to be in…always looking to the future, wondering if Vic had done her homework, reminding [her]self to take the clothes out of the drier and fold them, working out what to have for dinner.” Instead, she wishes she had taken a moment to stand back to take a proper look at Victoria.
Yet, I struggled with much of the 230 pages. (To be honest, it feels wrong to critique someone’s attempt to process the death of their only child.) In the past couple of years, I’ve read Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, Nina Riggs’s The Bright Hour, and Julie Yip-William’s The Unwinding of the Miracle. All three deal with their respective authors’ efforts to come to terms with their mortality, after being diagnosed with cancer. Not quite the same issue that Loss Adjustment deals with, but similarly emotional, raw and heartfelt. But where Kalanithi, Riggs and Yip-Williams’s books were achingly beautiful reads, Loss Adjustment fell short for me.
I’m not quite sure what it was. Perhaps Kalanithi, Riggs and Yip-Williams were writing before their death and ultimately focussed on the uplifting – what they were living for in what remaining time they had. Collins, on the other hand, is left to pick up the pieces of an existence where she feels that there is little left to live for. And her response is to imbue (somewhat uncomfortably for me) meaning and significance in everything she sees. A kingfisher sighting, a hat in a tree, a photocopied image of Snow White in Victoria’s drawer – all these are taken signs of Victoria’s continued presence. Memories of incidents that took place before Victoria died take on darker overtones – an infestation of termites in the apartment, the disappearance of flight MH370, the death of their Taoist neighbor. Perhaps it was the prose. Perhaps it was a combination of the two – the same recollections, the same musings rendered more skillfully would have made for a better read.
Read this for a frank discussion of an important topic that doesn’t get as much airing as it should.
asphaltmonkey's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
It is gently wrenching, and slightly more understated thus far that I imagined. But that is the broken mirror of grief, we all traverse it in our own ways.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
lahlorleh's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide and Self harm
seeyf's review
4.0
This must have been a difficult book to write. Linda Collins gives us an unflinchingly raw and honest account of the grief, frustration, doubt, blame and anxiety that followed after her 17-year-old daughter’s suicide. As she describes how she and her husband attempt to deal with the immense pain and loss they experience, she also weaves in excerpts from Victoria’s journal found after her passing. In their search for answers, the journal helps shed light on the loneliness and inner anguish that tormented Victoria, a budding writer who was sensitive, intelligent and thoughtful, but who also carefully hid these struggles from her friends and family.
The title “Loss Adjustment” is an insurance term, to refer to the process of determining the exact amount to be claimed in the event of property damage, and one that Linda also underwent following the Christchurch earthquake. But this is meaningless when applied to a suicide, for how can a human life ever be quantified, or the reasons and multiple factors leading to it be identified and methodically analysed? Collins comes to terms with the fact that she can never know the exact causes for the actions that Victoria took, or how it could have been prevented. In her own process of trying to adjust to and understand this devastating loss through many different angles (cultural differences, spirituality, mental health, the toll of a results-oriented school culture, bullying), she does not find an end to grief or clear answers, but she does find reasons to keep on living and working, and to share Victoria’s story so that it might help others. This book is an urgent reminder for all of us to pay greater attention to the people around us, the fragility of life, and the struggles that many of us face unacknowledged.
The title “Loss Adjustment” is an insurance term, to refer to the process of determining the exact amount to be claimed in the event of property damage, and one that Linda also underwent following the Christchurch earthquake. But this is meaningless when applied to a suicide, for how can a human life ever be quantified, or the reasons and multiple factors leading to it be identified and methodically analysed? Collins comes to terms with the fact that she can never know the exact causes for the actions that Victoria took, or how it could have been prevented. In her own process of trying to adjust to and understand this devastating loss through many different angles (cultural differences, spirituality, mental health, the toll of a results-oriented school culture, bullying), she does not find an end to grief or clear answers, but she does find reasons to keep on living and working, and to share Victoria’s story so that it might help others. This book is an urgent reminder for all of us to pay greater attention to the people around us, the fragility of life, and the struggles that many of us face unacknowledged.
pipbiz's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Self harm
marryallthepeople's review
3.0
I can't imagine the grief of these parents. It was a commendable exploration of grief and teenage suicide. I would have like more analysis in the second half of the book, but I can imagine it was raw .... Teenage suicide and teenage pressures really need to have more attention and contemporary review. The statistics are too high, and all too real.