Two Years of Wonder
Ted Neill
Neill recounts his years of volunteering with HIV/AIDS afflicted children, the suffering they endured, and the resilience these brave children showed despite unimaginable pain and loss. Moreover, he shares that although seeing the suffering first hand led to a major depressive episode and hospitalization, he ultimately found hope and healing.
Where should I begin? While this is billed as a memoir that Neill has written documenting his journey to recovery from being ready to kill himself to finding a path forwards, this is far more than that. I actually found that quite a minor part of the book – instead I was equally entranced and horrified by the stories of the African orphans living in Rainbow who live with being HIV+. Ted’s time there included the introduction of antiretrovirals (ART) and the lengthening of the children’s lives – so that they could live into adulthood. That of course is a very positive outcome, but not available for all children because it is so expensive and there are so many affected by this insidious disease.
I fully admit that I got confused in some parts of the different children’s stories. The way Ted characterised Oliver in his red beanie for example made him stick in my mind, but other children got mixed up, particularly as they often seemed to be included in the text in a random order. It is highly possible I missed the significance of the order since I was dipping into and out of this book.
What I would have liked was an index of the different languages spoken in Africa and their associated /Tribes/. Also, because I’m quite literal in the way that I read words, it took me a while to work out that the children spoke of HIV in a phonetic manner. So I could have also done with a glossary of those words.
This is strictly non-fiction, so I don’t need to rate it. But I feel like this book was really well thought-out by an author who was really aware of what he was writing and how he was writing in. Kudos to you, Ted (I hope you don’t mind me using your first name, but I really feel like I’ve gotten to know you). Thank you for sharing your story, and the stories of the children you worked with.
First off, there are lots of interesting (and horrifying) facts about the true amount of plastic in the world. Then there are practical and accessible ways to approach quitting plastic. Something I found particularly good was that each tip comes with easy, medium, hard, and ‘it’s personal’ symbols. Just a few little steps can make a huge difference. As per the starfish parable – it makes a difference to that one (
I hoped that this book would discuss how to exploit people as media. Instead it reads as a list of facts with no actual argument. My wife got half way through this book before she gave up and needed to rant to me about it. She did read the second half (no other books on offer at the time) which had more details and practicality in terms of what will happen next eg. ‘getting lots of likes’ is the way that things are heading.
What I thought I was going to get out of this book was a series of interesting, respectful stories about funerals Wilde had directed. Instead I encountered a memoir that aimed to dispel a negative ‘death narrative’ and restore a knowledge of death as inevitable, but not bad. While there are some stories, this book is more about how Wilde has changed his attitude towards God and religion since being a child afraid of hell through to being an adult who sometimes suffers from compassion fatigue.
I hated this novel. I finished it, but I completely skimmed the last half of it because I was impatient with the slow action and boring protagonist. Passing between the present dinner and past memories could have added some momentum, but instead just served to push me out of the narrative, and wonder why the dinner table format had been used if the novel was going to contain flashbacks anyway.
I didn’t see that ending coming. I mean, I knew that it would probably be someone out of left field, but really? That person? I’m not sure the author gave me enough warning, but perhaps a second reading would make it obvious for me. The relationships of the other characters were sweet, but they could have perhaps had a bit more backbone, particularly Ben. But I suppose not all of us are the Jack’s of the world.
At the very beginning of this novel I was bewildered by the number of characters that I was going to have to keep track of. I thought of drawing a mind-map in fact! Slowly though I kept track of the three main women and their important connections – Sophie, Claire and Bec. I generally enjoyed the past interspersed with the present, and found that although the past parts could have been excluded, they added a depth to the current day fears of the women (and men).
Suzanne is a tormented character with multiple facets that I loved. The magic here was that I could see things from her perspective and her flawed logic, even as I hated the way that she treated people. Strangely enough, I had just read 
Meg Jay has really delved into this topic with insight and sensitivity. Some of the chapters really resonated with me, even as I struggled with the concept of the horrible human circumstances that some people grow up with (eg. sexual/physical/mental abuse, neglect or alcoholism). The statistics on how many brilliant people come from adversity were really eye opening.