In this raw, compelling memoir, Monya Williams tells two stories. The first traces her cancer struggle; the second, a childhood marred by her abusive stepfather.

The story opens with her awakening in recovery, her breasts gone. Just as she’s beginning to feel like herself, her doctor delivers more bad news: Her cancer has spread. She’ll need another surgery, followed by aggressive chemotherapy and radiation.

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Williams has a fierce faith and unshakable optimism, along with a loving husband and children. Still, the abuse she suffered as a child resurfaces as she endures bouts of depression.

The story then flashes back to her childhood: No closed doors, not even while showering. Whippings for the smallest infractions. Mandatory backrubs, for which her stepfather was naked. Prayer became “a beautiful tender mercy in my life,” particularly when her beloved half-brother dies suddenly from a blot clot in his lung.

Later, she marries her boyfriend, whose family shows her a new way to live as they “opened their arms the way some people open front doors.”

Eventually, the story circles back. As Williams prepares for a bilateral mastectomy, “I made lists in a shaky hand on the back of a grocery receipt: white blood cells, red blood cells, benign vs. malignant…My brain became a junk drawer, packed, clattering, hard to close.”

This beautifully written memoir delivers authenticity and a depth that transcends the genre. It’s about cancer, yes. But it’s also about life: the lessons we learn, bargains we make, ways we find meaning in being alive.

“People talk about cancer patients ‘losing their battle,’ but the phrase has never sat well with me,” Williams writes. “No one loses… The fight simply ends – not in defeat, but in peace.” As Williams finds ways to remain ever-positive, readers will root for her.

In the crowded field of cancer memoirs, this is sure to be a comfort to those who have traveled this path or walked beside it.
Also available in hardcover and ebook.