I'LL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS by Kylie Ladd

I’ll Leave You With This is the newest novel by Melbourne author, Kylie Ladd. I have read several of her previous books, including Last Summer and The Way Back.

🩷 Disclaimer: the author of this book is a friend of mine. However, my review is an honest one and truly reflects my thoughts on the novel.

I’ll Leave You With This is the newest novel by Melbourne author, Kylie Ladd. I have read several of her previous books, including Last Summer and The Way Back.

I’ll Leave You With This is the story of four sisters whose brother was killed. They are not exactly close as sisters but come together annually on the anniversary of his death to remember him and celebrate his life. On the third anniversary, one sister suggests that she would like to contact the various recipients of their late brother’s organs, donated after his death.

This novel is a real page-turner - I had it finished in less than 24 hours. Each chapter focusses on a particular sister - Allison, Bridie, Clare or Emma. It tells the story of their journey towards meeting donor recipients, while also going back in time to give decisions and attitudes context, as well as filling out the story in terms of the relationships between the sisters and their late brother.

This was a wonderful book to read. It is, at times, funny, poignant, searing with grief and infused with hope and contentment.

The only thing I don’t enjoy is the constant jumping around, not only between characters but in time - a couple of times I found myself going back to check what timeframe the chapter was in and whether it was prior to or after other plot points. This settled as the book went on but in the first half, I found this a little confusing. However, this is Kylie’s style of writing and I expect it - I’m just not good at keeping my timelines straight!

This book was released last week so you’ll be seeing it pop up across bookshops now and I highly commend it to you. I am also really pleased to see a novel tackling real life issues such as organ donation, as donor levels in Australia are still critically low and normalising and celebrating the gift it provides, in times of immense sadness and stress, is fantastic.