'A moving tribute to a mother’s life, one of loss and disappointment, sacrifice and silence ... but also one of immense dignity and resilience.'

(Debra Adelaide, author of The Household Guide to Dying)

'A genuine seeker of wisdom, Carey is a truthful writer and the reader can believe her version of life as she has lived, experienced and observed it ... Waiting Room is written from the heart.'

(The Weekend Australian)

'... raw and evocative.'

(The Advertiser)

‘A wise, sorrowful, and graceful work. At once exquisitely tender and beautifully written, it tracks a mother’s illness and decline within the precious complexity of family relations, reminding us that some forms of writing are also forms of love.’

Gail Jones

'In a style reminiscent of Anne Enright or Joan Didion, Gabrielle Carey brings us a warm, very human look at the relationship between herself and her mother ... This wise and heartfelt memoir explores the kind of familial love that is at once unbreakable and fragile, strength-giving and taxing.'

Krissy Kneen (Avid Reader Newsletter)

'Carey's spare prose suggests the courage of her venture. The unevasive clarity of her descriptions of guilt and a sense of daughterly inadequacy give this work its intensity and clarity.'

(Australian Literary Review)

'In this sharp and honest memoir, we see what it i s that families, in all their complex dynamics, can give to each other, and just what they stand to gain when they lay down their arms and let each other in.'

(Pharmacy News)

'This is a beautifully-written and scrupulously honest memoir. Waiting Room is a tender tribute to Joan Carey, and has much wisdom to offer on the complex subject of mother-daughter relationships.'

(Media Culture)

Gabrielle Carey 'has produced an extremely well-written and thoughtful documentation of her mother's fight with an invasive brain tumour and, indeed, her fight with her family ... This memoir is painfully honest and direct as well as compassionate ... Recommended.'

(Armidale Express)

'Waiting Room is a tender memoir of mother–daughter connections and understanding.'

(U:Read It (UTS))

'When you reach a certain age, you realise that life is filled with unanswered questions, incomplete understandings, ambiguous meanings and relational loose ends. The beauty of a memoir is that it can unapologetically reflect this chaos without the need for momentous conversations, dramatic revelations and eventual resolution. As a doctor, writer, daughter, wife and mother, I found much to learn from and relate to in Carey's Waiting Room. Sometimes the truth may be stranger than fiction, but generally it is just much more real.'

(Medical Journal of Australia)