Beauty in the Broken Places, Allison Pataki
Beauty in the Broken Places, Allison Pataki
22 Rating(s)
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Beauty in the Broken Places
A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience

Author: Allison Pataki, Lee Woodruff

Narrator: Allison Pataki

Unabridged: 6 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/01/2018


Synopsis

A deeply moving memoir about a couple whose lives were changed in the blink of an eye, and the love that helped them rewrite their future.

Five months pregnant, on a flight to their "babymoon," Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange, and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave--a healthy thirty-year-old athlete and surgical resident--had suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. Next thing Allison knew, she was sitting alone in the ER in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to hear if her husband would survive the night.

When Dave woke up, though seemingly strong and outwardly intact, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. Allison lost the Dave she knew and loved when he lost consciousness on the plane. Within a few months, she found herself caring for both a newborn and a sick husband, sifting through endless hospital bills and insurance paperwork, and struggling with the fear of what was to come.

As a way to make sense of the pain and chaos of their new reality, Allison started to write daily letters to Dave. Not only would she work to make sense of the unfathomable experiences unfolding around her, but her letters would provide Dave with the memories he could not make on his own. She was writing to preserve their past, protect their present, and fight for their future. Those letters became the foundation for this beautiful, intimate memoir. And in the process, she fell in love with her husband all over again.

This is a manifesto for living, an ultimately uplifting story about the transformative power of faith and resilience. It's a tale of a husband's turbulent road to recovery, the shifting nature of marriage, and the struggle of loving through pain and finding joy in the broken places.

About The Author

Allison Pataki is the author of the bestselling novels Sisi, The Traitor's Wife, and The Accidental Empress, as well as the co-author of Where the Light Falls with brother Owen Pataki. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and she has also written two children's books. The daughter of former New York State governor George E. Pataki, Allison and her husband, David, are passionate about raising awareness of the difficulties of life after a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Allison graduated cum laude from Yale University and lives in New York with her family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on May 09, 2018

5 poignant and brave stars to Beauty in the Broken Places! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ I have been a fan of Allison Pataki’s books because she writes in my favorite genre, historical fiction. In Beauty in the Broken Places, she bares her extraordinary heart in a personal memoir. When she was five months pregnant......more

Goodreads review by Camille on March 01, 2018

Five stars to author Allison Pataki for opening up a window into the life of her family after a devastating and unexpected stroke befell her young husband. I know from experience that things we think we might have to face when we're older come as a great surprise when they happen many decades earlie......more

Goodreads review by Lillian on May 25, 2018

This was an emotional read. It is a memoir telling the heartbreaking story of recovery from a stroke. Dave Levy, a thirty year old orthopedic resident suffers a catostrophic brain injury. The author, Alison Patacki is pregnant and walks every step of the way with her husband through rehabilitation.......more

Goodreads review by Pam on December 01, 2018

Although I primarily feature fiction, I had to include this remarkable memoir by author Allison Pataki. Pataki was five months pregnant when her husband suffered a massive stroke on an airplane. Pataki's story of how she cared for her recovering husband is an uplifting tale of resilience and strengt......more


Quotes

“An inspiring, intimate memoir about faith, resilience and the tenacity of love.”People
 
“In this emotional tale, a young couple see their lives changed in the blink of an eye—and learn to find love again.”US Weekly

“Bold and commendable . . . A strength of this memoir is [Allison Pataki’s] scrupulous honesty.”USA Today
 
 “A memoir about . . . determination and gratitude, and the value of putting one foot in front of another during a crisis.”The Washington Post
 
“Heart-wrenching.”Women’s Health

“Powerful and immersive . . . Pataki delivers an insightful look at how two people faced a life-altering test as a team ‘fighting to make the dreams of our future possible.’”Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A beautifully woven, suspenseful love story with a stunning victory, reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit, and that anything is possible with a loving tribe.”—Marcia Gay Harden, Academy Award–winning actress and author of The Seasons of My Mother
 
“A bestselling historical novelist’s account of how she survived the harrowing year following her young husband’s unexpected stroke . . . The strength of this end-of-innocence book lies in its demystification of the idea that strokes only occur in older people. . . . [A] heartfelt account of dedication and devotion.”—Kirkus Reviews 
 
“This is the kind of book that reminds us to slow down, to take stock of our good fortune and the small, everyday blessings we mostly take for granted as we rush through each day.”—from the foreword by Lee Woodruff, #1 New York Times bestselling author of In an Instant
 
Beauty in the Broken Places is inspiring not only as a story about perseverance through unexpected trauma, but as a magnificent love story about what it truly means to live the vows ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health.’ If you have ever feared suffering, this book will give you fortitude and courage. Life involves the unexpected co-mingling of sorrow and joy. This book will lift you upward and onward.”—Sheila Weber, founder of National Marriage Week USA and co-founder of New York Fellowship