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Still, I Cannot Save You

A Memoir of Sisterhood, Love, and Letting Go

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Still, I Cannot Save You

Written by: Kelly S. Thompson
Narrated by: Kelly S. Thompson
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About this listen

 Shortlisted for the 2024 Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
Nominated for the Inaugural Reader's Choice Award

With honesty, love, and humour, in this moving memoir, Kelly S. Thompson explores her relationship with her older sister, Meghan. Tested by addiction, abuse, and illness, the sisters’ relationship crumbles, only to be rebuilt into an everlasting bond.

Kelly Thompson and her older sister, Meghan, are proof that sisterhood doesn’t always equate to friendship.
Growing up within a military family, the girls were close despite being temperamental opposites—Kelly, anxious and studious, looked to her big sister for comfort, and Meghan, who battled kidney cancer as a toddler, was gregarious and protective. But as she approached adulthood, Meghan spi­ralled into a cocaine and opioid addiction, and Kelly’s relationship with her sister was torn apart.
Their paths diverge as they live their own lives, and it is only when Meghan becomes a mother that she and Kelly tentatively face past hurts and reexamine what sisterhood really means. But their reunion is threatened when Meghan receives a shocking new diagnosis on a day that should be one for celebration. Now, as the family reels at the prospect of the biggest loss imaginable, Kelly and Meghan must share all that they can in the time that they have, using their mutual sense of humour to chart a course through the darkest of days.
At once funny and heartbreaking, Still, I Cannot Save You is a story about addiction, abuse, and tragedy, but above all, it is a powerful portrait of an enduring love between sisters. Parenting & Families Relationships Women Funny

What the critics say

Shortlisted for the 2024 Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
Nominated for the Inaugural Reader's Choice Award

“With this heartwrenching yet hopeful book, Kelly has turned her loss and grief into something beautiful.”
—Rachel Matlow, author of Dead Mom Walking

“Told with candor and unflinching humor, Still, I Cannot Save You is a compelling portrait of a complicated sisterly love. Thompson is a master storyteller who asks readers to examine their turbulent relationships with troubled family members and the incredible bonds that hold us together. Her beautiful and affecting prose will leave you with a terrible ache in your chest. It will shatter your heart and then mend it together with tenderness and finely-wrought insight. I sobbed, laughed, and cheered for Thompson and her sister. Heroic and unforgettable.”
—Lindsay Wong, The Woo-Woo and Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality

“With unadorned language and a keen eye for the details of everyday life, Kelly S. Thompson triangulates the position between love, anger, and helplessness.”
—David Macfarlane, author of Likeness
All stars
Most Relevant
It is a poignant novel about caretaking and loving someone through the face of death.
As a caretaker myself, it was helpful to hear the details about hospice and helping guide a person you love deeply towards death.

Brave and helpful for other caregivers

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It must have been really difficult for the author to narrate her own book, I commend her for her courage in doing this!

There are many layers of grief that were explored including the varied emotions involved which are relatable. She was also quite truthful about sibling and family relationships. As Meghan said, "...maybe because writers look at what it is to be human that they're just showing us who we are." It was well-written and performed with grace.

That takes courage!

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A raw and honest memoir that explores the complicated impacts of addiction on family dynamics and the enduring love of two very different sisters.

Gorgeous writing - even better than the author’s first book, Girls Need Not Apply.

I had to keep the tissues close at hand while reading.

Beautiful story of sisterly love

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I really enjoyed it. Beautifully told story of love and loss. It was a tear jerker.

Excellent

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What a beautifully told memoir about the trials and triumphs of witnessing someone you love dearly battle addiction, illness and walking a path toward sure destruction and love them despite not liking them. It’s a beautiful telling of the complicated growing up years mixed with the coming back together as adults, as sisters, despite tragedy led to the realization of the strength and love in those bonds that can never be broken.

Heartwarming

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