Unlikely Gifts Unwrapped is a brutally honest, often hilarious, and deeply moving follow-up to Diane M. Simard’s first memoir, The Unlikely Gift of Breast Cancer. This sequel picks up after the treatments end, when the real internal work begins. Simard shares the raw aftermath of surviving Stage IIIc breast cancer—not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Through sharp wit and disarming vulnerability, she invites us into the world of “Diane 2.0,” a version of herself rebuilt from the ground up, one awkward, infuriating, and strangely beautiful moment at a time.

Reading this felt like sitting across from a wise, hilarious friend who’s just laying it all out. Simard doesn’t sugarcoat a thing, and thank God for that. Take her car race story in the chapter “The Day After.” She goes from feeling great in her E55 to spiraling into insecurity in a matter of minutes. But then? Her inner warlock (yes, she has one) kicks in with some tough love, and suddenly she’s yelling into the void, “F-you, cancer!” while driving. It’s chaotic and hilarious. That moment alone sold me on her voice—it’s not filtered, not sanitized. It’s real.

Chapter 17, The Bizarre, the Ironic, and the Tragic, is a wild ride through the strange intersections of grief, absurdity, and the sheer unpredictability of life after cancer. The author doesn’t just recount her experiences—she dissects them with a scalpel of dry humor and sharp clarity. She reflects on the deaths of loved ones, awkward moments of social insensitivity, and the weird, cosmic ironies that kept piling up when she was least prepared. And yet, she finds a way to laugh, even while grieving. This chapter captures the messy tangle of experience post-trauma—where joy, pain, and absurdity all elbow each other for space. It’s raw, awkward, uncomfortable, and totally honest. Just like real life.

This book is for the people who think the hardest part of cancer is the treatment. It’s not. It’s what comes after—the loneliness, the mental fog, the weirdly orange hair, the way you stop recognizing yourself in the mirror. If you’ve survived something big—or loved someone who has—this book will meet you right there, no matter how messy your “after” is. Highly recommend for cancer survivors, caregivers, mental health professionals, and anyone who’s been sucker-punched by life and lived to tell the tale.

Pages: 200 | ASIN: B0F1BX7L4B