A Heart That Works is a love letter to Henry, Delaney's son, who passed away from a brain tumor when he was only 2 years old. I've loved Rob Delaney's comedy and show Catastrophe for a long time. We both have kids of similar ages, so it was hard to hear about what their family was going through when Henry was sick.

As you would expect, this memoir was absolutely devastating at times. Delaney ruminates on what it was like to have such a sick child while trying to balance parenting other children and working.

Though the subject matter is heavy, there is so much beauty contained in this book. There were even parts that made me laugh at loud. Delaney has such a sharp comedic mind and shows such raw vulnerability about his family. He wonderfully captures the kaleidoscope of feelings he's had since Henry became sick and his family suffered such tragedy.

Thank you Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

To give this book anything less than 5 stars would be an injustice
I’ll keep this review very short and sweet as how can I possibly review this book with enough justice it deserves.

This book contains pain, more pain than anyone should have to go through in life yet it is also one of the most life affirming books I have read.

The love for Henry shines through every page and is so deep that you can understand why the love brought his family together through the worst time.
This book doesn’t feel like a memorial as I half expected going in for Henry but instead was a celebration of both him and the people who surrounded him in his too brief time on earth.

This book is Beautifully written and it is visible that it comes from a place of deep reflection

Utterly heartbreaking but completely beautiful and I would highly recommend

I received a free copy of A Heart That Works, by rob Delaney, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The story of little Henry and his unsuccessful battle with cancer is sad, but his fathers crassness made the book hard to read.

Gosh I thought I would be ok with this one but I was a wreck, I think the honesty was just incredible from start to finish. I felt the emotion and pain and it will take a long time to recover.

This memoir is about a father and mother who lost their toddler son to cancer. It tells the story of their baby's life, the care he received during his long illness, and the family's lived experiences. The writing is excellent, and it is so ruthlessly honest that it did what the author set out to do, which is to make me feel the loss intensely, to begin to understand the terrible grief of it. Amid the devastating sadness, though, I felt just as much beauty and love. The author's capacity to describe the joy his boy brought to him was deeply affecting. The courage of that astounded me.

The discussions of depression were well placed and insightful, as were the stories of exceptional carers. The author includes very personal details but only in a way that serves the purpose of making the reader feel and understand and relate, not in a way that ever felt overdone.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys memoir or who is ready for an emotionally challenging and beautifully written story.

Many thanks to both Spiegel & Grau and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of A Heart That Works.

A Heart That Works is Delaney’s intimate, unflinching, and fiercely funny exploration of what happened – from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that followed through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains.

This was a deeply moving book. Honestly, I can't imagine the agony Mr. Delaney and his family experienced. Henry Delaney was a year old when he was diagnosed with a tumor the size of an apple on his brain stem. He was two when he died. A Heart That Works is a brilliant telling of his son's short life from birth, to cancer diagnosis, through treatment, and ultimately his death. This just isn't the way life is supposed to go. You're supposed to be born, you grow up, you get old, and THEN you die.

I will never, ever forget sweet Henry.

5/5 🌟

This is a book about Delaney's son who they discovered had a brain tumor at 11 months, his illness, and his death at only 2 years old. It is a gutting book and also beautiful. Delaney's anger is palpable - it's honest, sometimes paired with his dark humor and sometimes it's just there raw - he's mad his child died and most people don't know that loss. Delaney's love for his son Henry is also infused into every word. Delaney wants us to know Henry, to know he was a sweet, fun, wonderful 2 year old. And it is felt. The trials of the illness are not shied away from, they are there, but it is also clear in every moment that Delaney would give anything to be with Henry caring for his tracheostomy, no matter how hard it all was. Even in the face of such a tragic, unfair, unfathomable loss, Delaney does not hesitate to recognize his privilege - he continually shouts out single parents and how they have it harder in this situation, he repeats that he was aided in this awful, complicated process by being white and educated. Even in his anger, he is deeply grateful to so many who touched Henry's short life. And throughout is Delaney's signature dark dark humor. This is not a long book, I finished it in one sitting, but it's a highly emotional and beautiful and rageful book. I feel privileged to have been able to learn about Henry. Also, warning: you will cry buckets as you read this.

Thank you to @netgalley and @spiegelandgrau for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. A Heart That Works is out Nov. 29, 2022.

Artwork courtesy of my daughter, who I hugged extra tight after I read this book.

#aheartthatworks #robdelaney #netgalley #spiegelandgrau #bookstagram #bookreview

Henry Delaney was a year old when he was diagnosed with an apple sized tumor near his baby sized brain stem. He was two when he died, almost deaf and partially paralyzed, leaving behind his parents and two small brothers. A Heart That Works honors this beautiful boy’s brief life.

Rob Delaney’s raw grief is so strong that it reaches out from the pages of this book to grab you. His grief vibrates from the pages, partially balanced by humor and anger. When I read, I highlight passages to remember meaningful words and phrases. I quickly realized that I was highlighting nearly the entire book. So I will remember A Heart That Works. And you, Henry, with your beautiful blue eyes, I will remember you. 5 stars.

Thenk you to NetGalley, Spiegel & Grau and Rob Delaney for this ARC.

A beautiful but devastating book by Rob Delaney about how his one-year old son Henry became ill and after a year of treatment and devotion from all who met him he passed away. This reads as a love letter to his son and is incredibly moving. There is also a feeling of rage throughout- how can such a thing happen to such a wonderful tiny child who should have been at the very beginning of his life? Delaney writes with such passion and love. This is a must read.

I don’t want to be totally hard hearted, but though I expected to be totally torn up about this memoir of the death of a young and innocent child, it left me curiously unmoved. As I analyze my response I think it is because it is all about the author. It is pages and pages of blog postings and stand up routines about how Henry’s death affected Rob Delaney and how much Rob Delaney grieved and how much Rob Delaney loved his family.
I’ve ready plenty of accounts of tragic deaths beginning with John Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud, and grieved the loss til the last page and beyond. Rob Delaney tries too hard to fill up written space with showy anecdotes. I think he would have done better to be still and let the reader feel the loss for himself.

What a book -- Rob Delaney is always thoughtful and brilliant and a true vision of what humanity can be, but A HEART THAT WORKS transcends all of his previous work. With his signature heart and humor, Delaney details the most excruciating experience of watching one's child die of brain cancer. The joy and love with which Delaney describes Henry, even in his final days and even only in his memory, is irresistible, and the anguish and seething rage Delaney points toward pediatric cancer, privatized healthcare, and efforts to defund the NHS are impossible to discount. A stunning, terrible, beautiful memoir -- difficult but essential to read.

Rob Delaney is a gifted writer. This book is love letter to Henry, Delaney's two year old son who died of a brain tumour at aged two. The horror of what Henry suffered through, the nightmare of what his family went through and I'm sure continues to go through is crushing. I think this is an important book for grieving families and for those who are looking to support grieving families.

Rob Delaney brings us a book about grief that I rarely see and has definitely become one of the must read books for anyone who loves true stories.

Delaney writes from the heart and you feel like you are there while Delaney and his family deal with the effects and illness that affected their son and later his death and how it affected the entire family and how they grew from it. I loved this book because of Delaney and how he uses humor and speaks about how his son's passing as allowed him to reflect on how they live and I feel that anyone should read this if they are interested in the ideas surrounding grief or the humor of Delaney.

As a parent whose daughter was stillborn, so much of Rob Delaney's grief story resonated with me. Your life changes once the worst thing that will happen to you has happened. His honesty, sadness, anger, and grief all come through the page. Like The Year of Magical Thinking, this will become a standard in the grief memoir.

I picked up my Kindle when I couldn’t fall asleep last night. Of course I got so drawn into this book that I stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish it.

Rob Delaney is an actor and the co-writer of one of my favorite comedies (Catastrophe). He and his family moved to England to film the show and soon after, his one-year old son Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumor (see more TW/CW below).

“Delaney’s memoir—profound, painful, full of emotion, and bracingly honest—offers solace to those who have faced devastation and shows us how grace may appear even in the darkest times.”

Rob shares the story of Henry’s life and passing with thoughtful detail, and includes little moments of levity to demonstrate how he and his family coped with the unimaginable loss. What I think I appreciated most was how Rob showed the non-linear and messy nature of grief and rejected the idea that “everything happens for a reason”.

The story starts with this quote: “A heart that hurts is a heart that works” - Juliana Hatfield

This was much more difficult than I had anticipated. The subject matter will keep this out of a lot of readers’ hands. Delaney has a wonderful, conversational writing style. It’s like hearing a friend’s story across the dinner table. He bared his soul and invited us all along for the ride.

This book was excellent. I found myself fighting back sleep because I couldn’t put it down. Rob is honest and intentional about the way he writes about the experience of losing his beautiful son, Henry. His love for Henry and the rest of his family explodes off the pages. I imagine this book will be extraordinarily helpful for other parents who have had to manage this awful fate. I am grateful that Rob shared his experience and thoughts with us. I feel lucky to have read this book.

I’m not sure I even have words for this book. It was so incredible and beautiful and finding myself laughing between the tears felt like the only appropriate reaction at times. A must read for everyone. truly.

Read this entire book in one sitting. Cried all the way through apart from when I was bawling, rather than sobbing. Finished it and went straight upstairs to hug my son. What a story.

Rob and his pregnant wife moved from America to London for work with their two young sons. When Henry was born, they had their family and a new home life in England. Until one day, just before Henry’s first birthday, he started to vomit. So began a journey of medical diagnoses and experiences that are beyond my comprehension.
This is the story of Henry’s short but so loved life, written beautifully by a father who’s life was transformed first by cancer and then by grief.
Read it. Even though I sobbed all the way through I would highly recommend it.
RIP Henry, a beautiful boy.

What a book! My heart was in my mouth! I got goose bumps from the way Rob writes, the memories shared are so special and so personal and the length of the book shows just how important stories like these are. The focus on the carers and hospital staff was a lovely touch!