Review: Wave: A Memoir of Life After the Tsunami by Sonali Deraniyagala

3 stars for Wave: A Memoir of Life After the Tsunami by Sonali Deraniyagala.

I feel somewhat guilty for giving this book a 3-star rating granted that it is an emotionally honest and heartfelt portrayal of incomprehensible grief on life after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. But if I am to be honest as well, this is where it fails.

While I appreciate that the writing is frank - to a fault - and stripped of all window-dressing, and I understand that the author has never, will never and can never get over her unbelievable loss, there is just too much anger and negativity in her narratives that I find the story extremely heavy and laborious to read after a while. More often than not, the author gets so carried away by the past that she goes on and on about things that simply do not interest me. So, on top of the anger, the story becomes long and slow-moving and well, boring after the first few chapters.

But then again, who am I to fault or criticise? This is after all, her book, her memoir, possibly even an outlet for her to vent her frustrations for the cruel blow that life has dealt her with.

Through her book, Wave, it is clear that the author goes through the different stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and perhaps, acceptance - though not necessarily in that order. Grieving takes time; dealing with grief after losing loved ones takes a long time. I am not sure if the author has come to terms with the reality of it all and find her peace by the end of her memoir. Or will she ever?

If you are looking for a story that centers on healing and moving on after a natural disaster (a tsunami; a tidal wave), then this is not the book for you. However, if you are interested to look into the mind of a woman who is still raw with grief and anger after the passing of close to 10 years of the catastrophe, then this is the book to read.


Publisher: Virago
Publication date: 12 Mar 2013

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On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived.

In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since.

She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny; and then, over the ensuing years, as she emerges reluctantly, slowly allowing her memory to take her back through the rich and joyous life she’s mourning, from her family’s home in London, to the birth of her children, to the year she met her English husband at Cambridge, to her childhood in Colombo; all the while learning the difficult balance between the almost unbearable reminders of her loss and the need to keep her family, somehow, still alive within her. 

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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