Review: Do They Wear High Heels In Heaven?

Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven?
by Erica Orloff
Red Dress Ink
October 2005
4/5 Stars

The title of this novel is a perfect description for the story. Not only because the book is about someone dying, but because, as the title implies, it is a “superficial” look at life and death.

Written in first-person narrative but containing two main characters, we get the story of both Lily, a single mother of two, and Michael, her best friend. Lily, an outspoken columnist, gets assigned a column about breast cancer awareness. This means she has to go and get a mammogram.

Unfortunately the results come back positive, and after a biopsy, it’s discovered that Lily has aggressive cancer. After a few chemotherapy sessions, it’s clear that she is going to die. She decides that Michael will care for her children when she’s gone, not her deadbeat ex-husband. Meanwhile Michael is trying to write the story of his life, which has been a lot of violence due to his being gay.

I enjoyed this book, as it was full of good advice on making sure there is plenty of love in your life, as well as a suggestion that we should live life to the fullest. I did however feel the book was “superficial” because it only scratched the surface on Lily’s battle with cancer, her dying, etc. The story was very short and rarely got into details or too much into the characters’ minds.

Lily and Michael as characters were great however and I was rooting for them throughout the book. Erica excels at creating larger-than-life characters.

I couldn’t understand, however, why Michael’s story about being betrayed by his crush, and being assaulted so many times because of his sexual orientation, was in the book. There is a lot of violence and cringe-worthy details in his part of the story. As a matter of fact, I had to skim some of the parts because it was just bad. Why was senseless violence thrown in with a cancer story? I have no idea. And, all of the characters in this book, save for Lily’s ex-husband, were too-good-to-be true and seemed overly perfect and loving.

Overall, this was a good read that will make you think about living, dying and loving. If you are looking for a meaningful yet light look at one woman’s battle with breast cancer, this book is for you.

reviewed by Rian Montgomery

Tags: 4 Star Rating, erica orloff, Reviews