Although this book is fiction, it is based on real-life tragedies experienced by close friends of the author, so the story is very real and moving.
There isn’t much that makes me cry – hardship, cruelty, disaster or tragedy doesn’t really affect me – but this book made me cry. Not because of the tragedy, but because of the described kindness that hinted at the glow of a better world. What a wonderful book, what a wonderful story! It really lifted my spirits and gave me hope in the midst of the chaos of our world.
The book is about a young mother, Shona, who loses her 9-year-old son in a bicycle accident. Her world falls apart and she retreats to a quiet town, leaving even her husband behind, to try to recover. The story details her journey of discovery and recovery as she perceives God’s tender love shining through the kind, struggling, ordinary people around her.
The author herself is a very caring person: although she has perfect hearing, she learned sign language, and for many years she made this sign language for the deaf people in her local church, so that they could also understand the sermon and what was being said. happening. in the life of the church.
The book is rich with descriptive passages of the countryside and the people, immersing you in the history and setting to the point where you wonder if perhaps you have been there before as it leaves such a vivid impression on the mind. I enjoyed letting my imagination gorge itself on the paint of the text, where the relevant focal points were masterfully plotted on the canvas of my mind so that I felt like I was in that room or paddling in that stream. I experienced this kind of immersion long before when I was in school reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights as a steady book, and have always enjoyed it ever since.
I found the book encouraging, inspiring and even a bit educational in the sense of learning how we should live and treat each other. He showed how tragedy in people’s lives can eventually result in giving life to another person who is struggling, so that something absolutely wonderful comes out of something that is abysmally tragic. It is a story of victory coming out of tribulation, made all the more poignant by the fact that this story is just fiction because the names and places have been changed; the events described are actually a mosaic of various real events.
This book is worth reading, it should be read! Kindness is the only thing that could solve all the problems in this world, and this book tells you how!
Highly recommend!