It was a happy accident that I picked up both Michael Gerard Bauer's The Running Man and Belinda Jeffrey's One Long Thread around the same time. Bauer's book was published in 2004 and Jeffrey's just this year, and although one is about a young boy at the fringes of his teenage years and the other about an older girl already navigating those murky waters, there were similarities between the two books that surprised and delighted me.
Both books possess a sort of natural, unaffected Australian sensibility. There is a subtle, quiet awareness of place and its value in shaping the identity of a growing young person. In what is a rarity today, both books are strongly character-centric, focussed on the interchange of relationships and the unfolding of everyday events rather than on cataclysmic, action-packed moments.
Both, too, are coming-of-age stories. In The Running Man, Joseph grapples with the absence of his less-than-perfect father while attempting to make sense of his reclusive and tormented Ashgrove neighbour Tom Leyton. In One Long Thread, Ruby Moon is left stranded and bewildered by the splitting in half of her family through divorce. She stays with her loving, stable dad in Sydney while her twin sister Sally is taken off to live with their fragile, increasingly religious and ritualistic mother in Darwin.
Both books are about young people finding their place in the world by meeting head on with the pain and grief of others. Neither of the books shy away from the tough stuff. The Running Man deals with war, post-traumatic stress disorder, the loss of faith, and ugly rumours of inappropriate behaviour towards children. One Long Thread explores divorce, death, and teen pregnancy. But both treat these subjects gently, reverently, and respectfully.
Perhaps the most sweetly startling of the similarities, though, was the fact that silkworms play a powerful role in both stories. These unassuming little creatures provide the catalyst in both books for the breaking down of relational and psychological barriers. In The Running Man, the care and feeding of a silkworm colony (is that what they're called?) slowly builds a bond of friendship in an otherwise intense and awkward environment. In One Long Thread, the process of harvesting silk from the insects' cocoons helps Ruby open up and explore her feelings of abandonment, loss, and confusion, all the while drawing close to a beloved family member she never expected to get to know.
The Running Man by Michael Gerard Bauer (2004) is published by Omnibus Books. One Long Thread by Belinda Jeffrey (2012) is published by the University of Queensland Press. Both are beautifully-written works of Australian fiction for young adults.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
If Dr Seuss had written Twilight?
This is truly genius, from a commenter replying to an article on how famous writers would have written Twilight:
Jake likes a girl. Her name is Bella.
Bella likes a different fella.See this vamp? This is Ed.
Ed is pale. Ed is dead.Ed saved Bella from a van.
Ed must be a special man.Ed won't kill boys. He won't kill girls.
Ed gets fed on deer and squirrels.This is James. He's a tracker.
He's a sort of vamp attacker.James hunts Bella for a thrill.
Will Ed kill him? Yes, he will.But James gave her a little bite.
Will she be a vamp? She might!Edward fixes Bella's cut.
She won't be a vampire.
But...She becomes one. Read some more.
She's a vampire in book 4.
[source]
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The fairytale that is true
Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale is a tiny book – less than a hundred pages – but author Frederick Buechner makes each word count, packing the text with literary beauty and a deep passion for the gospel story. The four chapters are comprised of material from four lectures originally given at Yale University, but they read more like impassioned odes to the gospel than transcribed speech. The book opens with a call to preachers – which we are all meant to be, in one way or another – a powerful call to honestly tell the truth of the gospel. This truth, Buechner writes, is more than mere head knowledge. It appeals to the very human parts of us that cry out for answers, the answers that might fill the ‘emptiness where grace and peace belong’ (p. 4). It is the heart’s cry of every man and woman. It is the darkness and the terror, what we feel and lack as much as what we believe or morally assert. And the answer to all of this, Buechner says, lies in the truth of the gospel which comes to us in the form of a tragedy, a comedy, and a fairy tale.
The gospel starts in silence, Buechner writes, the silence of no answers, the silence of the bleak realisation of our own filthiness. It is a tragedy before it is anything else. It ‘is bad news before it is good news’ (p. 7). The bad news is that goodness is entirely out of our grasp. We are consigned to an emptiness of existence; we cannot save ourselves. We are shown our inability to be the men and women we always thought we could be. We are Pontius Pilate, as he agonises over the man who calls himself the king of the Jews. We are Henry Ward Beecher, fearing he has destroyed the message he dared to preach because he did not remain faithful to his wife. The gospel starts here, Buechner writes, because it must ‘strip us bare in order ultimately to clothe us’ (p. 33).
Then, when the way is steeped in tragedy and we know that we are empty, grasping, futile, alone, then comes the twist, the great comedic surprise: that things can turn around and the whole messy situation can be reversed. Buechner calls it the comedy of grace, grace which ‘can’t possibly happen because it can only impossibly happen’ (p. 58). If ‘the tragic is the inevitable,’ then ‘the comic is the unforeseeable’ (p. 57). We cannot expect it and yet somehow it happens. It is a comedy which set Abraham and Sarah laughing in the face of the angel of the Lord. It is a comedy in which the bums living on the streets get invited into the kingdom of God. It is startling and laughable and Jesus tells us we will not understand it unless we become like little children.
Finally, the gospel is a fairy tale. Fairy tales revel in transportation into impossible worlds, making unreality into reality. Dorothy somehow found herself in Oz. Alice ended up through the looking glass. Lucy stumbled into Narnia. The appeal of these stories is universal, and the heart wonders if these worlds of magic and mystery are closer than we think. The gospel answers yes. Fairy tale worlds burst into the everyday lives of Dorothy and Alice and Lucy (p. 77) and in the same way, the gospel bursts into our everyday world. In the fairy tale the lowly one becomes the princess, and so in life it is not always the beautiful or the powerful who triumph in the end. Jesus was not the least bit kingly to look upon, and his manner was only humble. ‘But the whole point of the fairytale of the Gospel is, of course, that he is the king in spite of everything’ (p. 90). It is impossible but it is true. It happened and is happening yet. Darkness meets light, and though darkness might loom large and light looks feeble, it is only a charade: light wins and will always win. The fairy tale of the gospel is surprising. Everything gets turned around, and it takes our breath away.
The preacher’s job then, Buechner insists, ‘is to hold up life’ (p. 16) and to express the truth of the gospel through the truth of human experience. Buechner himself does this by drawing out the humanity of the people we know from Scripture. He is, first and foremost, a storyteller, and he pulls truth from many Bible stories, retelling them so that the reader becomes a part of the story, recognising the prodigal son in him or herself.
Buechner’s writing is vivid, beautiful, and evocative. Within his sermons-turned-chapters he quotes from Scripture throughout the Old and New Testaments. He speaks of the poetry of prophecy, and explores truth in the ancient origin stories, as well as in Jesus’ parables. He revels in the literary beauty of the Bible along with the classics of English literature, quoting Herman Melville, CS Lewis, Shakespeare, and others.
Telling the Truth is not only an exposition of the truth of the gospel, it is a celebration of story and of literature. Buechner’s text fully exploits the Bible as literature, recognising and affirming the power of the biblical literature not just as bare truth written down, but as truth powerfully communicated so that it resonates in the mind and heart of the reader. He examines symbolism in the gospel and draws attention to the great themes of the Bible, which are literary themes as well as expressions of truth. He praises the emotional connection that biblical literature provides the reader, discussing its power to evoke truth in a way that ‘can at best be only pointed to by the language of poetry’ (p. 25). And of course, he couches the gospel in the three distinct literary genres of tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale.
Buechner ends Telling the Truth with the earnest invocation that each reader strives to do exactly that. ‘Preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy,’ he writes, ‘of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary’ (p. 98). It is, he adds, ‘the tale that is too good not to be true.’
Telling the Truth
Frederick Buechner
9/10
The gospel starts in silence, Buechner writes, the silence of no answers, the silence of the bleak realisation of our own filthiness. It is a tragedy before it is anything else. It ‘is bad news before it is good news’ (p. 7). The bad news is that goodness is entirely out of our grasp. We are consigned to an emptiness of existence; we cannot save ourselves. We are shown our inability to be the men and women we always thought we could be. We are Pontius Pilate, as he agonises over the man who calls himself the king of the Jews. We are Henry Ward Beecher, fearing he has destroyed the message he dared to preach because he did not remain faithful to his wife. The gospel starts here, Buechner writes, because it must ‘strip us bare in order ultimately to clothe us’ (p. 33).
Then, when the way is steeped in tragedy and we know that we are empty, grasping, futile, alone, then comes the twist, the great comedic surprise: that things can turn around and the whole messy situation can be reversed. Buechner calls it the comedy of grace, grace which ‘can’t possibly happen because it can only impossibly happen’ (p. 58). If ‘the tragic is the inevitable,’ then ‘the comic is the unforeseeable’ (p. 57). We cannot expect it and yet somehow it happens. It is a comedy which set Abraham and Sarah laughing in the face of the angel of the Lord. It is a comedy in which the bums living on the streets get invited into the kingdom of God. It is startling and laughable and Jesus tells us we will not understand it unless we become like little children.
Finally, the gospel is a fairy tale. Fairy tales revel in transportation into impossible worlds, making unreality into reality. Dorothy somehow found herself in Oz. Alice ended up through the looking glass. Lucy stumbled into Narnia. The appeal of these stories is universal, and the heart wonders if these worlds of magic and mystery are closer than we think. The gospel answers yes. Fairy tale worlds burst into the everyday lives of Dorothy and Alice and Lucy (p. 77) and in the same way, the gospel bursts into our everyday world. In the fairy tale the lowly one becomes the princess, and so in life it is not always the beautiful or the powerful who triumph in the end. Jesus was not the least bit kingly to look upon, and his manner was only humble. ‘But the whole point of the fairytale of the Gospel is, of course, that he is the king in spite of everything’ (p. 90). It is impossible but it is true. It happened and is happening yet. Darkness meets light, and though darkness might loom large and light looks feeble, it is only a charade: light wins and will always win. The fairy tale of the gospel is surprising. Everything gets turned around, and it takes our breath away.
The preacher’s job then, Buechner insists, ‘is to hold up life’ (p. 16) and to express the truth of the gospel through the truth of human experience. Buechner himself does this by drawing out the humanity of the people we know from Scripture. He is, first and foremost, a storyteller, and he pulls truth from many Bible stories, retelling them so that the reader becomes a part of the story, recognising the prodigal son in him or herself.
Buechner’s writing is vivid, beautiful, and evocative. Within his sermons-turned-chapters he quotes from Scripture throughout the Old and New Testaments. He speaks of the poetry of prophecy, and explores truth in the ancient origin stories, as well as in Jesus’ parables. He revels in the literary beauty of the Bible along with the classics of English literature, quoting Herman Melville, CS Lewis, Shakespeare, and others.
Telling the Truth is not only an exposition of the truth of the gospel, it is a celebration of story and of literature. Buechner’s text fully exploits the Bible as literature, recognising and affirming the power of the biblical literature not just as bare truth written down, but as truth powerfully communicated so that it resonates in the mind and heart of the reader. He examines symbolism in the gospel and draws attention to the great themes of the Bible, which are literary themes as well as expressions of truth. He praises the emotional connection that biblical literature provides the reader, discussing its power to evoke truth in a way that ‘can at best be only pointed to by the language of poetry’ (p. 25). And of course, he couches the gospel in the three distinct literary genres of tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale.
Buechner ends Telling the Truth with the earnest invocation that each reader strives to do exactly that. ‘Preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy,’ he writes, ‘of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary’ (p. 98). It is, he adds, ‘the tale that is too good not to be true.’
Telling the Truth
Frederick Buechner
9/10
Thursday, March 10, 2011
I almost cried (and I never cry when I read)
I just (as in, a minute ago) finished reading When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead, and it so amazed me that I had to crack open this neglected blog and tell you all about it.
The story begins simply enough in the voice of the narrator, Miranda. She's an almost-twelve-year-old girl balancing the sort of things that almost twelve-year-old girls juggle in 1978 America: school, growing up, being a daughter, getting to know the man who will soon be your stepfather -- that kind of thing. However, the story swiftly offers a hint that there's going to be more to Miranda's every day life than what initially appears, and the first clue to this mystery is the fact that Miranda isn't simply writing a record of her days; she's writing a record of her days for somebody.
Sometimes I work on it in my head, Miranda writes, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell, about everything that happened this past fall and winter. It's all still there, like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.
In Miranda's characteristic voice -- sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, and always warm -- the reader is pulled into a story which feels in many ways like a gentle coming-of-age tale, but which provides markers and clues throughout that point to another whole story running under the surface. Also: Madeleine L'Engle references!
Gah! It's hard for me to say much more without giving anything away, so I'll just recommend the story to you and leave you to make your own conclusions. When I finished this books, I closed the cover, made a little gasping sound, and wished I'd written it.
When You Reach Me
Rebecca Steadman
9/10
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The story behind the story
In its opening chapter, Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women includes a letter from Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy’s father, away serving as chaplain in the Civil War. However, the book has little else to say about Captain March until he returns home following a serious illness. March is Geraldine Brooks’ projection of all that Little Women doesn’t tell us. The first-person narration picks up where the letter in Little Women ends, and the reader begins to see what the March family – privy only to the carefully-edited details of Captain March’s epistle – cannot.
All around March are the horrors and degradations of battle, evidence of every kind of human desperation, passion, and bigotry. The war brings the idealistic March into sharp conflict with himself as current experiences dredge up memories of past victories and regrets. It is through these that the formation of March’s ideals and character are revealed, both to the reader and to March himself.
When March succumbs to a serious illness, a result of injury and deprivation, his wife takes up the narrative before it switches back to March’s perspective for the final chapters. Mrs. March’s distinctly different viewpoint offers some surprising insights into their relationship and shared history, and brings to the narrative a resolution which unites March’s past and present in a series of slightly Dickensian connections.
March remains carefully faithful to the canon created in Little Women. The author makes thoughtful reference to characteristics and concepts hinted at in the original work, ideas like Marmee’s lifelong challenge to manage her unruly temper. And just as Alcott drew on her family life to create Little Women, Brooks also relies heavily on the life of Bronson Alcott to create Captain March. Brooks’ journalistic background shines in the rich biographical material skilfully woven into good fiction. Through the foil of March’s life, the story explores Bronson Alcott’s transcendental philosophies and his friendship with Concord philosophers Thoreau and Emerson. Alcott’s anti-slavery views, controversial in the electric atmosphere of the war, find expression in the fictional March family’s interaction with the abolitionist John Brown and the installation, in their home, of a “station” for the underground railway.
Brooks’ use of historical detail is elegant and unself-conscious; the reader does not register the moments the story slips between fact and fiction. March is more authentic and more open than its wholesome predecessor, and a little riverside tryst between March and his not-yet-wife seems anachronistic with regards to the strong morals of the time. However, the writing is disciplined and measured, using words and phrases consistent with the era, yet honest, precise, and at times eerie. The account of one soldier’s last moments of life, shot and drowning in a river, has the feel of a lavish slow-motion scene accompanied by a soaring, aching musical score.
In spite of the precise language and minute descriptions, March does not lag. Even the flashback chapters, which can have a tendency to slow a narrative down, only push along this story that manages to be compelling without requiring a constant dose of action.
The result is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account – a love story, a quest, and a coming-of-age. Geraldine Brooks’ Captain March is less of a hero than the mostly-absent father of Little Women, but he is much more three-dimensional, a man who, throughout the course of his story, grows and changes, discovering who he is and what he believes.
March
Geraldine Brooks
8/10
All around March are the horrors and degradations of battle, evidence of every kind of human desperation, passion, and bigotry. The war brings the idealistic March into sharp conflict with himself as current experiences dredge up memories of past victories and regrets. It is through these that the formation of March’s ideals and character are revealed, both to the reader and to March himself.
When March succumbs to a serious illness, a result of injury and deprivation, his wife takes up the narrative before it switches back to March’s perspective for the final chapters. Mrs. March’s distinctly different viewpoint offers some surprising insights into their relationship and shared history, and brings to the narrative a resolution which unites March’s past and present in a series of slightly Dickensian connections.
March remains carefully faithful to the canon created in Little Women. The author makes thoughtful reference to characteristics and concepts hinted at in the original work, ideas like Marmee’s lifelong challenge to manage her unruly temper. And just as Alcott drew on her family life to create Little Women, Brooks also relies heavily on the life of Bronson Alcott to create Captain March. Brooks’ journalistic background shines in the rich biographical material skilfully woven into good fiction. Through the foil of March’s life, the story explores Bronson Alcott’s transcendental philosophies and his friendship with Concord philosophers Thoreau and Emerson. Alcott’s anti-slavery views, controversial in the electric atmosphere of the war, find expression in the fictional March family’s interaction with the abolitionist John Brown and the installation, in their home, of a “station” for the underground railway.
Brooks’ use of historical detail is elegant and unself-conscious; the reader does not register the moments the story slips between fact and fiction. March is more authentic and more open than its wholesome predecessor, and a little riverside tryst between March and his not-yet-wife seems anachronistic with regards to the strong morals of the time. However, the writing is disciplined and measured, using words and phrases consistent with the era, yet honest, precise, and at times eerie. The account of one soldier’s last moments of life, shot and drowning in a river, has the feel of a lavish slow-motion scene accompanied by a soaring, aching musical score.
In spite of the precise language and minute descriptions, March does not lag. Even the flashback chapters, which can have a tendency to slow a narrative down, only push along this story that manages to be compelling without requiring a constant dose of action.
The result is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account – a love story, a quest, and a coming-of-age. Geraldine Brooks’ Captain March is less of a hero than the mostly-absent father of Little Women, but he is much more three-dimensional, a man who, throughout the course of his story, grows and changes, discovering who he is and what he believes.
March
Geraldine Brooks
8/10
Monday, October 26, 2009
It's Monday -- so here, have a [book] meme!
It has been far too long since I flicked open this little pixellated book journal. Therefore, to flex my little book-musing fingers, a meme:
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
The Good News Bible given to me by my aunty Nell when I was just a baby.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you'll read next?
(for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick to one of each)
Current read: Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith
Last read: Sick Heart River by John Buchan
Next read: Breath for the Bones by Luci Shaw
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Everything I've ever tried by Jodi Picoult.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?
Maybe A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
5. Which book are you saving for "retirement"?
War and Peace.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
Sometimes I'm guilty. Eep.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
Sometimes authors are brilliant enough that they can make even acknowledgements sound interesting.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Jo March, perhaps -- only without my sister dying.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
There are too many to consider. Plus, it is on the way to Monday night and therefore my brain is lazy.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
Once, a few years back, I was sitting in the pit area at my father's motorbike race meet, reading Stephen Lawhead's Hood. The wife of the man in the opposite pit smiled, but we didn't talk much. The second day of the race meet, however, she returned with a massive bag full of Lawhead books -- all for me! She'd noticed and she wanted to pass her own collection on to someone who would enjoy them. That was pretty incredible.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
Sometimes I love certain books and certain people so much that I feel sure they would go together, and give them to each other.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
My Bible. It's not only gone places with me, but it's in my heart, too.
13. Any "required reading" you hated in high school that wasn't so bad ten years later?
I've loved most stuff I've "had" to read.
14. What is the strangest item you've ever found in a book?
An inscription with a web address.
15. Used or brand new?
Both have their own small delights.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
I'm too chicken to try anything of his.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
My Sister's Keeper. Alright. So throw rotten tomatoes at me.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Hmm... I'm sure there are many, but none come to mind.
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oh, the descriptions of starchy, fatty, utterly delicious foods in that book make my mouth water just thinking of them!
20. Who is the person whose book advice you'll always take?
My cousin Elizabeth. I think that out of all my friends, hers is the book taste most similar to my own. We love so many of the same books.
How about you?
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
The Good News Bible given to me by my aunty Nell when I was just a baby.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you'll read next?
(for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick to one of each)
Current read: Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith
Last read: Sick Heart River by John Buchan
Next read: Breath for the Bones by Luci Shaw
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Everything I've ever tried by Jodi Picoult.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?
Maybe A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
5. Which book are you saving for "retirement"?
War and Peace.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
Sometimes I'm guilty. Eep.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
Sometimes authors are brilliant enough that they can make even acknowledgements sound interesting.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Jo March, perhaps -- only without my sister dying.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
There are too many to consider. Plus, it is on the way to Monday night and therefore my brain is lazy.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
Once, a few years back, I was sitting in the pit area at my father's motorbike race meet, reading Stephen Lawhead's Hood. The wife of the man in the opposite pit smiled, but we didn't talk much. The second day of the race meet, however, she returned with a massive bag full of Lawhead books -- all for me! She'd noticed and she wanted to pass her own collection on to someone who would enjoy them. That was pretty incredible.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
Sometimes I love certain books and certain people so much that I feel sure they would go together, and give them to each other.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
My Bible. It's not only gone places with me, but it's in my heart, too.
13. Any "required reading" you hated in high school that wasn't so bad ten years later?
I've loved most stuff I've "had" to read.
14. What is the strangest item you've ever found in a book?
An inscription with a web address.
15. Used or brand new?
Both have their own small delights.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
I'm too chicken to try anything of his.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
My Sister's Keeper. Alright. So throw rotten tomatoes at me.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Hmm... I'm sure there are many, but none come to mind.
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oh, the descriptions of starchy, fatty, utterly delicious foods in that book make my mouth water just thinking of them!
20. Who is the person whose book advice you'll always take?
My cousin Elizabeth. I think that out of all my friends, hers is the book taste most similar to my own. We love so many of the same books.
How about you?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Facing unimaginable challenges
I am frequently disappointed by the low-quality writing of a lot of contemporary Christian fiction. One Christian writer who never fails to surprise and delight, however, is Angela Hunt. I've read almost ten of her books by now and each one has been a treat to digest both as an eager reader and a hopeful writer. The reader part of my brain revels in Hunt's personable, highly-relatable characters and her surprising plot twists. Meanwhile, my writer's side is gaping at the obvious amount of research invested in the story and the clear, concise writing that maintains a lot of internal and external tension, keeping me captivated all the way through.
I finished her 2008 book, The Face, today and loved it. Not loved it in that I was left with a syrupy sweet all's-well-that-ends-well kind of contentment, but loved it in that I was challenged and provoked and captivated. The Face is the story of Sarah Sims, a girl born with severe facial deformities resulting in a lack of facial structure -- no eyes, nose, ears, or a mouth. But there is more to her story than this huge challenge. Her past and the deaths of her family members are buried government secrets, and Sarah grows up sheltered from anything resembling the real world in a remote intelligence agency's safe house. The story is one of intense personal growth and thrilling spy adventure, Alias-style. I'm going to make my sister read this one, right away.
The Face
Angela Hunt
Rating: 9/10
PS. In one of those coincidences which are too interesting to be called such, while I was reading The Face, I stumbled across About Face, a blog providing "a forum of hope and encouragement for those suffering from perceptual disabilities, facial deformities, and cranial birth defects." I've only explored a little, but already I've been challenged by the faith and grace shared in the posts there. I recommend you check it out.
I finished her 2008 book, The Face, today and loved it. Not loved it in that I was left with a syrupy sweet all's-well-that-ends-well kind of contentment, but loved it in that I was challenged and provoked and captivated. The Face is the story of Sarah Sims, a girl born with severe facial deformities resulting in a lack of facial structure -- no eyes, nose, ears, or a mouth. But there is more to her story than this huge challenge. Her past and the deaths of her family members are buried government secrets, and Sarah grows up sheltered from anything resembling the real world in a remote intelligence agency's safe house. The story is one of intense personal growth and thrilling spy adventure, Alias-style. I'm going to make my sister read this one, right away.
The Face
Angela Hunt
Rating: 9/10
PS. In one of those coincidences which are too interesting to be called such, while I was reading The Face, I stumbled across About Face, a blog providing "a forum of hope and encouragement for those suffering from perceptual disabilities, facial deformities, and cranial birth defects." I've only explored a little, but already I've been challenged by the faith and grace shared in the posts there. I recommend you check it out.
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