Book Review: "Cancer Is a Bitch," by Gail Konop Baker

This is a very personal book. It's about a woman who discovered that she has breast cancer -- the book starts there -- and what she does about it. But, more than that, it's about who she is, and how she reacts, and how her family and friends react to her and vice versa. Because, let's face it, we don't live in a vacuum. Whether they like it, good or bad, they're along for the ride.

So if you don't want personal, don't read Cancer Is a Bitch.

But if you want an intriguing book, written very well and from the heart, from a professional reporter, this is a good one. If you've been involved with cancer, either as a patient or family member or friend, this will help you understand reactions, at least this woman's reactions.

But although Cancer Is a Bitch is an easy read, it's not an easy read, if you know what I mean. It's linear, it's funny, sometimes hilarious, almost always true, sometimes heartbreaking, and it's the latter times that I found it difficult to continue. I'm glad, however, that I did.

The inside flap reads: "I want to be brave. I want to be big. I want to be gracious and cool. I want to be the Audrey Hepburn of cancer... Gail Konop Baker was a runner, yoga practitioner, and lifelong subscriber to Prevention magazine. As her forty-sixth birthday approached, she looked forward to a time when she could at last take a deep breath, with one child heading off to college and the other two busy with their lives. She finally felt as if she was getting her life back.

"Then, right before Valentine's Day 2006, she heard the words that would forever change her: Just to be safe, I think we should biopsy.

"It was the beginning of her year-long struggle with breast cancer and its fallout."

Cancer Is a Bitch, or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis
by Gail Konop Baker
Da Capo Press
2008
261 pages