The combination of long haul flights and fiction helped me knock a couple other novels off my list. It can be a hard decision of which book to be married to for nine hours, through turbulence and calm skies, dinner and breakfast, ignoring all movies, until you hit the tarmac.
The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms drew me in with what I thought was a letter to her Mom but was instead the prelude to Chapter One. When I started Chapter Two, I re-started the book and then read, well, until the seat belt sign came off for the final time. It was a fun read about mom-ing, friendships, dating, reading, with a few journal entries (in the form of letters) thrown in. Amy, our main character, who is Mom and librarian, has a hard jolt that eventually works its way into a blessing and a "Momspringa". I liked Amy's parenting style, her awkwardness in adjusting to time way from her kids, and her capacity for forgiveness. The kids were a-ok too.
I tried four other books before I settled into Everything You Are by Kerry Anne King. I enjoyed this book enough to keep reading but I didn't fall in love with it. I really liked the characters and their hardened edges, but I had a hard time accepting the thread that binds several of them together: the acceptance of a lifelong commitment to play an instrument or dire consequences if you stop. There certainly were no shortage of tragic events in the novel and throughout them all, I was rooting for Braden Healey and his daughter, Allie. I also wanted Ophelia MacPhee (Phee) to find her happiness. In this way, King's novel was a success for me.
I am not sure if I will stay the course of fiction or swing back to non-fiction for a bit. As always, if you have any recommendations for my book list, please send them my way. Happy reading!
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