Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story

by Isabel Gillies

Book Overview

Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life--a handsome, intelligent, loving husband who was a professor; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house in their Midwestern college town; the time and place to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1439110077
• ISBN13: 9781439110072
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Gripping read

A ton of people have this book on hold at the two libraries I've lived near recently, and I finally got my turn. I think the demand is strong because so many people have experienced heartbreak and yearn for artists like Gillies to articulate the experience for us. Her book is brilliant. I don't think I've read a book faster, it is so compelling. I don't get why there are a handful of reviewers who are rabidly unsympathetic to the unflinchingly honest, extremely raw revelations of a woman with children being abandoned. Is it easier to find fault with her than to accept the excruciating pain of not being able to control the course of love? How can anyone ridicule the distress of a person being deceived by the people closest to her? This book is about the agony of loss that inarguably more women and children experience than do men. Our losses are something worth understanding and empathizing with. I'm grateful Gillies lends a fresh voice to the subject.

Don't understand the hate - it's a wonderful book

First off, I admire the author for being so honest with her feelings and her life. I don't know if many of us could be so blunt about how or what we're really feeling. After reading all the negative reviews, my knee jerk reaction is that "Sylvia's" friends must have taken to the keyboard and taken up pseudonames. Even if that is not the case, I don't understand how people can do the "mememe" stuff and be asked to be taken seriously. Um - the story is about the author and her life. Therefore, "ME" is totally acceptable. I went through a divorce. A couple of them. They aren't fun. Child custody is not fun. Did that too. Can I be honest about how I felt when my daughter was with her step-mother? To a point. Would I want to do that when the reader can find out easily exactly who I am? Hell no. It's one woman's story. At the very least, she deserves our respect for opening her soul to us. She has helped people see there is a light at the other side. Her husband behaved like a selfish, lying child. Sylvia, well, she got what she deserved now, didn't she. I loved the book. I am now happily married. I passed the book on to a friend who is going through a divorce with a husband who cheated on her. It has helped her. That's what the book is for. It does happen every day. It shouldn't, but it does. I'm glad there are people who are willing to share their stories to ease the pain.

a revenge-served-cold-fantasy's fantasy

i read this book probably for the same reason a lot of other people did or will - i heard it reviewed on NPR by maureen corrigan. she said it was one of those you read all at once, because you can't stop - true. i stayed up until about 3 a.m last night with it. there are a lot of reviews that will address the literary value or lack thereof, the writer's skill or lack thereof, and on in that vein. i will let them handle that. what i find remarkable and frankly incredible is the way this woman - the author - has been able to pull off one of the greatest presentations of cold revenge on a silver platter i have ever read.(something with a fine pedigree, tiffany's perhaps, or the like - if all the label dropping in the book is any indication.) it takes about twenty seconds or less with google to find out the scoundrel's real name and the real identity of the dread other woman. google *their* names and who do you get? isabel gillies. masterful. the husband and his consort, portrayed as such creeps, are english professors both - one assumes a certain love affair with books therefore - and here is the jilted former wife, on the new york times bestsellers list. who knows how that will play out in the future, how the real live sons of the author ( to whom she dedicated the book, another rapier thrust moment, see book) will appreciate or not the public airing of their parents' messy divorce, but that's not anyone's business. unless the author decides to make it so again. i give it five stars just for the audacity. she is an actress, and she seems to be acting herein - isn't everyone's retelling of their own history tinged with more than a little dramatic re-write? but i sit stunned at the aplomb disguised as desperation that it must have taken to avenge her humiliation so publicly. wow. a roman a clef left for them to find after you have gone cold is one thing - one about people with whom you will be dealing for the rest of your life is quite another. i can say i will be curious about how it plays out twenty years from now - again, not really any of my business, but... they say the books are flying off the shelves in oberlin. no doubt!

It Does Happen All the Time !

Statistically speaking, approximately 60% of our population has experienced divorce at least once, so this book hits a resounding chord for a majority of us. What's so admirable about this storyteller's view of her experience is that she's not whinny or punitive, she's just shocked by the sudden change in the structure of her entire life, and struggles to make sense of it. This is a story about a woman whose fairytale life was cut short by circumstances, human vagaries, and perhaps chance. She tells her story with compassion, understanding and grace. Happens Every Day is a heart-warming look at love lost, love found, forgiveness and finding joy in the present moment. This is a wonderful, uplifting book.

Heartwrenchingly good!

I loved this book. The authors struggle to hold onto her family while it falls apart is gut wrenching. You feel her agony for herself and for her children. Isabel's life is perfect and then it is completely broken. Her telling of her life falling apart around her and her efforts to keep things glued together is compelling and difficult to put down. You feel tremendous passion for the author, you hope that you are able to conduct yourself as well if you are ever in her shoes. Truly a worthy book. Brava!