Review: The Girl in the Red Coat

The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Actual Rating: 4.5
Absolutely loved this book. Wasn't sure before I got started. Wasn't sure which way it might go. Will it be ugly? Will it be too religious? Will it be too much like too many other "missing child" books, done to death with nothing fresh to say? But this book caught me by surprise.

A unique story but the true draw is getting to know Carmel and Beth. Getting to know them through their fears, their memories, their emotions, their strengths. Kate Hamer has a unique voice that draws you in slowly, deeply until you are immersed in their world and you don't even recognize when it happened. Many other similar novels focus on the hunt, trying to find the child, the reasons behind the disappearance, or the trauma of what might happen to the child. This book, in some odd respects, reminds me a bit of The Lovely Bones only in the respect that you get to know Carmel through how she views the world. Her thoughts more than her actions. You wish you could reach in and tell her the one truth she doesn't know that would change her whole world. By the conclusion, you know she has the strength to change her fate even if things had been different on that last day if only she had known.

A treasure of a book. Not a boisterous, action-packed, edge-of-your-seat suspense, but a quiet urging to move forward.

Highly recommend it if you are looking for a good solid read with a small handful of characters you won't easily forget.

Looking forward to reading more of her work!

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Review: Mudbound

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just finished. I'm not sure I can muster any words of elegance as I sit with the emotions that are overwhelming me but I will try.

If you haven't yet read this book and are up to it, get a copy. Get a physical copy. Move it to the top of your TBR pile. When it comes time to read it, open the cover and feel the pages. You will want to feel their texture underneath your fingertips. This read won't be one of soaring imagination, lyrical beauty, lifted spirits. As you will see, the deeper you wade, you will feel yourself becoming bogged down in the mud along with them. The darkness and the duty that drives each of them. But underlying it all is an ugliness and an evil that consumes the very oxygen they breathe.

I warn you, this is a TOUGH read. It is dark and heavy and the words weigh heavy on your soul. There is an underlying anger that wells up and you feel helpless to find somewhere to put it. You see, early on, where things are headed, though you can't picture exactly how it will play out. But you know...yet you are helpless to derail it...to change things. To warn them. But, as you see them headed down their path, you are compelled to hold tight and stay with them and pray there will eventually be a real end to this evil once and for all one day.

When it is over, you will be thankful to have held this book in your hands. To feel a physical part of it. To have held onto something to remind you that this is fiction. Words on a page. Not truth. Laura and Henry, Jamie, Florence, Hap, Ronsel, Resl, Franz aren't real. They don't live...and breathe...although at times you can almost feel them taking a breath beside you. We can breathe because we know this is just a story...and they didn't live...but how many thousands of named and nameless faces who did have the same stories to tell?

I grew up surrounded by it. Surrounded by people on the wrong side of it. I will never begin to understand it...and I hope none of us ever does.

Hillary Jordan has created a simple but tangible world in Mudbound. We know it so well by the end of the book, we can almost pick it out on a map, complete with the characters that inhabit its land. Its story is riveting and immersive...dark and powerful. If you are looking for a light read, pass this by. But if you are willing to allow yourself to dig deep and really feel...even the darker side of humanity... If you are looking for a read that will impact you and stay with you long after it is done and has an impact on how you interact with the real world around you, then this is a book for you. ...and when it's over, close the cover and hold it quietly and let it settle into your soul.


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