Matt McAvoy Book Review

I won’t lie, this wasn’t really the book I was expecting from the blurb.  Perhaps my fault, I acknowledge; I know Karl has been explicit in stating this isn’t a self-help book, but in truth I was expecting something a little more holistically motivational, when a good 90% of You Only Live Thrice is more context-specific medical memoir, or a personal journey through lifesaving treatment.  From my own point of view, after a very morbid and reflective couple of years, littered with devastating and mortality-facing bereavements, I felt utterly deflated when I realized I was going to be joining Karl, in great detail, throughout the entirety of his hospital journey.  I don’t say this to complain, criticize or bemoan the book in any way, which will absolutely prove motivational for those to whom it applies, or choose to be motivated by it, but perhaps just to warn readers that it is a raw and brutally honest book; if you’re in a dark and melancholy place, it may be an unwelcome mood trigger.

Now all that is out of the way, I must mitigate that the book itself is a brilliant piece of writing by a very brave and clearly educated, eloquent and very smart writer.  Karl faced his own mortality head on, with humour and humility.  He holds nothing back in his graphic depiction of his cardiac arrest, treatment, recovery and then catharsis.  He presents the most terrifying topic: not just of life and death itself, but the very meaning of both, and the prospect of their respective dimensional planes.  He does so with laughter, a smile and a positive outlook, even though I’m in no doubt there must have been moments of profound despair, depression and hopelessness.  I get the impression that Karl is that kind of person in everyday life: motivational by his mere presence.  In fact, the most downbeat and desperate moments of this book come in its final few chapters, and are more related to losses suffered after his recovery, both as a result of personal bereavement and professional heartache caused in part by the COVID pandemic.  Yet even these soul-destroying episodes in Karl’s life are spun into genuine moments of celebration and optimism by the author; Karl inspires simply because he is inspiring, and it is to the benefit of us all that he is articulate enough to craft his story into quality words.  It is a real odyssey of a book, written by a decent author; perhaps a touch overly long in parts, and I would certainly recommend tweaking the blurb a little, for the specific reason that if this book can find its way into the right hands, it can achieve some real genuine good.