The book describes the inherent challenges impacting caregivers. The chapters are organized into two phases. The first phase focuses on how caregiver life expectations are reshaped and remolded through initial disorientation and role change. The second phase provides an algorithm for reorientation and advocacy. Thomson and White provide a realistic, well-described process of the caregiving journey. They address repatterned thinking that develops, as unraveling threads of past expectations for the future become contrasted against present reality. The authors address the trespass of societal and cultural boundaries with the need for human understanding. The book authentically prepares caregivers for the quest of normalcy and life balance while addressing a myriad of challenges, including painful isolation, emotional exhaustion, and unyielding toxic stress. Personal narratives engage the reader, demonstrating the way in which caregiving misdirects assumptions for the future by fastening caregivers to their present reality. The latter chapters focus on empowerment, adaptation strategies, and strength-building autonomy to leverage against caregiver challenges. Directions for building community sharing provide meaning, hope, and promise to successfully navigate the often invisible lives of caregivers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

--S. W. Gustafson, Elmira College

Susan Wurzer Gustafson

Elmira College

Speaker and consultant Thomson (The Four Walls of My Freedom) and White, associate professor at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C., provide gentle guidance to help readers who are becoming caregivers in this instructive guide. The authors write honestly about the feelings of loss during this transition, including grief over a future that will not happen. They explore the feeling of disorientation during the initial months of caregiving while recognizing how the caregiver's relationships with one's own family and friends can be affected, manifesting commonly in intolerance or disappointment. In their "A New Way of Seeing and Being" that concludes each chapter, they ask readers to optimistically reframe the hardships of caregiving by emphasizing that "our responsibilities and connections highlight how we are rooted and grounded with others." The book includes a variety of practical and tangible actions for the caregiver, including resources and advice on how to navigate both real-life and online support systems, strategies for getting help from one's social network, and advice for contacting medical professionals. Specific tools such as the ABCD (Asset Based Community Development) approach and Atlas CareMaps (as well as specific libraries and community centers) are also included. Any caregiver will find an abundance of assistance here. (June)