Wishing on a Blue Star ed. by Kris Jacen

Wishing on a Blue Star ed. by Kris Jacen
Stars: 4/5

Overall
There is no way to rank this book, to judge it, to compare it to anything else. There are stories, some of them funny, some of them heart breaking (I'm looking at you Amy Lane). Between the stories (or perhaps the stories are in between) are blog posts following Patric Michael's experiences dealing with cancer and everything that goes with it.

This is a longer book as far as books in this genre go, and it took me a while to get through, one because I struggle with anthologies anyway, two because there are alot of heavy topics on this books and three, I'll be honest, I was reading alot of books at the time. I'm glad I continued through and finished it though. I'll be honest, I cried the last half an hour of reading.

Because my normal review style isn't appropriate, I'll be looking at the blog and the anthology separately.

Blog
Patric is a talented author and wrote some very lovely blog entries which illustrated his struggles, as well as some other entries that he wrote during that time that lightened the mood. Some of them were very difficult to read and some of them hit me over the head and told me to wake up and live your life. Sometimes they were one in the same. Sometimes they were sad, even if that wasn't their purpose. I'm glad they were shuffled in with stories because I couldn't have just read the blog straight through without going a little crazy from empathic stress!

Patric chose to print the blogs as they originally ran, so no editing was done, which made me twitch sometimes, but knowing about it ahead of time saved me from being growl-y. I don't know Patric, and I've only read one of his stories, but I have a strange (and false) sense of knowing him. Maybe it's more just knowing myself more now. I don't know, and I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to figure out which it was.

Anthology
As anthologies go, this was fairly strong. Some were hit, some were misses, but nothing terrible. "When Angels Fall" by ZA Maxfield and "Dreams of a Terrible Brightness" by Amy Lane were two of my favorites. I'm fairly certain there were others I enjoyed as I went, but those two jumped out the most to me. "When Angels Fall" was the happy ending I needed and "Dreams of a Terrible Brightness" (the one I wept over) was the horrible honesty I needed.

This is a free book. Maybe it will help you understand others going through similar experiences. Maybe it will help you in your own struggles. Maybe it will just make you pause and consider all the wonderful things you have in life without heavily guilting you into it. I recommend everyone take the time to check this out.