tina_gs

This book is part mystery, part coming-of-age novel and part spiritual awakening saga. It has elements of a family drama and glimpses of romance, but it's really just a quiet novel about finding peace within yourself while everything else is falling apart around you. Samara Taylor is a pastors daughter. But she's also the daughter of a drunk, and a teenager struggling to hold onto her faith. Yet she's painfully shy and lives on the outskirts of society despite having one of the most visible positions in her small community. Simply, she feels lost. And when a younger girl from her father's congregation goes missing, she doesn't know how to talk to anyone about her fears and heartache when it's Judy who needs their full attention. While I'm not quiet by any stretch of the imagination, nor did I grow up in a small town or have an alcoholic parent, I connected with Sam. Not being able to talk about important things and being unsettled by a changing future...those are all issues I've faced. Some people refer to it as a "crisis of faith," but to me it's more of a rite of passage into adulthood. Only a lot of people doesn't come out the other side still holding fast to their belief in God. There is the internal quality to Zarr's books that I love. I can feel the essence of the narrators without being forced into their heads, like I can put myself inside of them rather than having them jump onto the page, fully formed. It's like being able to see an entirely new side of myself in each new character. And that's something that no other author has ever been able to do for me.

2022-11-14 18:08