Sally Obermeder

Sally Obermeder is an Australian TV reporter who specializes on fashion and entertainment stories (she describes herself to a Australian Guiliana Rancic). She has what many would describe as a dream job, interviewing Jon Bon Jovi and Beyonce, mixing with the rich and famous. However as she explains in this book, the job didn't fall into her lap - instead, it took many years of busting her gut to even get a foot in the TV door. Then when she finally had it made on the career front, she had problems with infertility - trying for six years before finally falling pregnant via IVF. At this point she really felt that things in her life had all come together - until she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer when 41 weeks pregnant. Almost immediately her baby was induced and she started a very aggressive programme of chemotherapy to shrink the tumour to a point where surgery was an option.

The reason that I bought this book was because someone very close to me has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and I was wondering if this would be a good book to give them. I was shocked to read about the realities of chemo and how brutal it is. It was something I obviously knew but I had never been exposed to the details before. Sally doesn't hold back from describing how traumatic her experience has been and how hideous and frightening the battle with cancer is. But throughout her warmth and humour and courage also shines through, so it becomes quite an inspiring book.

The reason that I've given it only three stars is because I felt strongly that it was in need of a good edit. It felt like a large part of the reason why she'd written the book was to say thank you to her friends and family for their support. This is lovely, but I don't need pages about how wonderful someone is when I have never heard of them. There was also lots of detail that added nothing and could have been cut out - stories about how she bought not one but two baby buggies, clothes she wore on various occasions etc. I didn't really know who she was when I started reading the book so perhaps true fans might revel in these details, but I felt that the book could easily have been 50 pages shorter and it would have been the better for it. Nevertheless, a genuinely inspiring story.… (mer)