It’s clear that Eric Rodriguez has the “author’s heart” because you can feel it when you read his book, but unfortunately - as a writer and editor myself - I know that we sometimes require a proofreader and editor’s watchful eye to make a story turn from a diary entry into a full-bodied literary experience.

There’s no doubt that Rodriguez has lived through the unimaginable and has overcome his challenges with a positive mindset that few could accomplish. But sadly, I felt like I was reading someone’s blog or a personal essay rather than a book. 

The editing and grammatical errors were distracting (paragraphs with multiple themes, run-on sentences, capitalization and punctuation errors, etc.), and the memoir was challenging to find myself invested in because I didn’t know who he was or why I was meant to care about him; he never really tells us who he is from more than a surface level or why we should care before he begins to share his story.

I would have preferred to see his very valuable wisdom scattered throughout his text rather than just at the end of each chapter. Every chapter ended with an essay-like conclusion: "Here’s what I learned.”

In addition, I didn’t require specific details (such as last names for people I didn’t know who briefly appeared in the text or street names rather than poetically describing the streets themselves) as it just made me feel more disconnected from the experience and less invested in the important message he was trying to share. 

An example of how his soulful ideas and experience would have been beneficial to be scattered like seeds throughout rather than compounded at a chapter’s end can be found in the first section of “The Cool Mom.”

I would have loved his personal definition of a cool mom when he named her, why not having a male role model impacted him, why it felt like he was hanging by a thread (beyond just saying "I was hanging by a thread,"), and maybe some spiritual insight into the losses of his mother and what the Universe was trying to teach her - paint us a picture of your experience and your learning. Like a few pieces in his story, this chapter also jumps around a lot and has us assuming details about him like we already know who he is when we do not.

This book has a lot of TELL and not a lot of SHOW. Readers don’t want to be told; they want to be led and shown. I think significant proofreading and editing (happy to help there if you need it), and learning how to disconnect from the story in order to make it more meaningful for partial, external readers would be beneficial. We hear a lot about who he is, his personality, and his struggles without him offering a reflection to readers on how to learn from him and his experience.

An example of his telling can be found in these sentences: “The craziest part about this situation was just a few hours later, they’re standing in my living room, him, my aunt Shawn, my younger brother Greg, and my Grandmother Gail.” We have never heard of these people before, and yet it’s being told to us in a way as if their names are important and we should care about them. They never show up again. Throwing information at a reader without showing them why this information should matter to them is something that happens frequently throughout the text.

Rodriguez tells us a lot about himself but doesn’t tell us enough about why we should care or why this information makes a difference in our own lives. He definitely has the heart and soul of a writer and has overcome situations and challenges I could never imagine, but he needs some guidance on who he is writing to and how to make the meat of the story clearer while eliminating factual memories that do not serve the wonderful intent he has for his message of hope and resilience. It would be nice for this foundation to be fleshed out into a full, powerful - and longer - text of healing, especially since I could read it all in 45 minutes.

And when he does, I look forward to reading it.