Review: Wave

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was difficult to review, because at first, it is full of unbridled raw emotions following a tragedy. I nearly abandoned it several times because at times it was such a painful read, but I’m glad that I trudged on. Sonia Deraniyagala details the bitter experience of losing her entire family in one day and seeing their memories everywhere for years to come. Even though she appears callous and hateful toward others, we have to understand that she was describing true events and emotions that transpired as a result of unimaginable loss. Everyone processes grief in their own way and in their own time and Wave is an honest depiction of the loss that she felt for years afterward. Not only does she express the pain of the loss but also the pain she feels at the lost possibility of her sons’ lives and what might have become of them had they survived.

Unfortunately, the readers who abandoned it after the first few chapters missed her transition from a angry, guilt-ridden, grieving mother and wife who could not come to terms with her identity without her family to someone who was able to revitalize herself after years of depression and suicidal thoughts.

This memoir is heartbreaking and difficult to read, but also a brutally honest representation of loss that we are often denied. Sonia Deraniyagala does not gloss over her trauma or grief or mask them under a metaphor, but presents her experience with clarity and honesty. Perhaps since, as readers, we want to assign metaphors to the subject matter to help us process it better, we can look at her journey as a tsumani that causes total destruction and cannot be understood through any logic to a tranquil and meditative ocean. In doing so, we must not forget the full truth of tragedy and recovery. We cannot look at the narrator as a fictitious protagonist with whom we can empathize, but a real mother, wife, and daughter who suffers an unimaginable tragedy and dares to open up with unfiltered and shocking sincerity about the human emotions that consumed her on her path to recovery.


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