Review: "Alive Day" by Karie Fugett

Alive Day by Karie Fugett
Published May 2025 via The Dial Press
★★★★

Barely out of her teens, Fugett got married on a whim—because she was in love, yes, but also because she was jobless and homeless and marriage to her middle-school sweetheart promised some level of security. Marriage meant she could be added to Cleve's military health care plan, and it meant she'd have some assistance in figuring out where to live.

Cleve and I weren't heroes. He was just a boy who loved his mama and hoped to afford her a better life one day. And I was just a girl searching for home. (loc. 4840*)

Then Cleve was deployed again. And this time, he didn't come back in one piece. And every bit of stability Fugett had cobbled together over the past months went out the window.

The military often reminded me that I was a "wounded warrior's caregiver." They told me I was "strong, brave, and essential." I understand now that the military relies on young spouses like me as cheap—sometimes free—labor. Military brass knows what to say to make young women think their labor is their duty. But at the same time, I believed those pretty words: Courageous. Self-sacrificing. Brave. Hero. (loc. 1364)

This makes for a quietly devastating read. All the things Fugett had hoped for were sidelined again and again as she struggled to care for her injured husband, whose medical care was centered on his physical wounds and did not take into account mental health—think PTSD—or the fact that he was still basically a kid without the experience or education to understand what he was going through, or to understand the risks of being prescribed opioid upon opioid to dull his pain. She describes learning on the fly how to fill out reams and reams of paperwork without which they would be left to fall through the cracks—and then falling through the cracks anyway, because the military wasn't prepared to treat psychological wounds or addiction. She's both precise in her language and unflinching in the details she shares, and you're left wondering just how many ways things could have been different.

If you're thinking about reading this—and I'd recommend doing so—you might want to avoid looking up Fugett in advance, or reading too many reviews; this is one that unfolds better if you don't have too much information going in.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.