31: The Weight of Silence

The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf, is every parent’s worst nightmare. Calli, rent mute by a traumatic event, goes missing in the middle of the night with her best friend, and her voice in the world, Petra. Calli leaves at the arm of her angry, drunk father, and Petra leaves because, the reader assumes, she is following Calli. However, this is not all true.

The storyline weaves through past and present and through flashbacks, and everyone has a voice in the book. I thought the different voices were interesting, and how each character was handling the tragedy, but the whole book just didn’t work for me.

I think this is too close to a nightmare of mine to really read the book and enjoy it. All I wanted to know was make sure that Calli and Petra were okay. I felt like there were parts of the story that should have been expounded on, and that parts were missing entirely (like the whole, “how did Petra get out of the house?”) thing.

I give this one a 6/10. I just did not love it, but again, maybe because it’s such a fear of mine.

28: Stay With Me

Stay With Me, by Sandra Rodriquez Barron, tells the story of five children found abandoned in a boat in Puerto Rico after a hurricane. They are dressed well, and all have a starfish drawn on their hands. The story jumps forward thirty years to when the children are adults – and have decided that they are siblings. The five adults gather at the home of one of the sibling’s girlfriends off the coast of Maine, after discovering that David, the eldest, has brain cancer.

The five reconnect and have formed a family of sorts. Through a series of unfortunate and fortunate events, they discover the mystery behind their shared history and travel to Puerto Rico, to the Dominican Republic and back, all with their green starfish on their hands (now a permanent tattoo).

I didn’t expect to like this book this much. I expected it to be poorly written and it was not. I didn’t expect to cry so much and to finish and just sigh contentedly. I really enjoyed this book. I really felt for all the characters, and it brings the whole, “your family can be people you choose as much as those you are related to” into play. 

I give this book a solid 8/10. A wonderful story overall.

3: The Scent of Rain and Lightning

The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard is a murder mystery style of book. I liked the premise of it – a girl’s father is killed during a rainstorm and her mother disappears the same night. A local man is accused of the crimes and sent to jail. Some twenty-something years later, he is released on bad evidence and it sends her into a spiral of finding out the truth.

The book was well written... for the first half, and then it falls apart to me. The characters were believable and the main character is likable. However, there are major parts of this story missing. I did not like the love triangle between the main character, Colin & Red. The history between Jody (main character) and Colin was awkward and the love interest only made it odder. I had a lot of questions surrounding Colin’s mother’s death – where were the police? Why was the killer able to escape so easily? Why was Billy able to escape? What was the motive in all of this?

Overall, I liked it. It never hit the “WOW” moment I was wanting, and it wrapped up too perfectly for my tastes. I give it a 6/10 because of the missing parts of the story and how the second half read so differently than the first half.