The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward – 270 pages
Book Blurb:
Amanda Eyre Ward tells the story of Alice Conroe, a forty year old Texas barbecue owner who has the perfect life, except she and her husband long for a child. Unable to conceive, she’s trying desperately to adopt but her destiny is quickly altered by a young woman she’s never met. Fearless thirteen-year-old Carla Trujilio is being raised by her grandmother in Honduras along with her four year old twin brothers. Her mother is sending money home from Texas where she’s trying to make a better life for her family, but she only has enough to bring one son to her. When Carla’s grandmother dies, Carla decides to take her fate into her own hands and embarks on a dangerous journey across the border with Junior, the twin left behind.
Two powerful journeys intersecting at a pivotal moment in time: Alice and Carla’s lives will be forever and profoundly changed. Heartbreaking, emotional, and arresting, this novel is about finding the courage to trail blaze your own path in life with faith, hope and love, no matter the struggle or the tragedy.
My Review: 4 stars
The Same Sky is a powerful book touching on social and personal issues in a fast paced read. That’s not easy to do and I commend the author for being able to take two important subjects and merge them seamlessly at the end.
What I really enjoyed in this book was my equal appeal to both of the 1st person narratives. One a much more harrowing than the other, however if they both held such angst, this would’ve been a very dark book.
This novel deals with many topics such as education, immigration, infertility, rape, drugs, gangs, destitution and the American dream. Some fleshed out more deeply than others, but that was the beauty of this book. So many important, discussion worthy topics were touched upon and sometimes it’s those gentle nudges that really make you think rather than being forced upon you.
This book is a mere 270 pages and is packed with so much to discuss. I can’t divulge more with out giving any spoilers to the storyline. I look forward to reading more from this author.
Quotes I liked:
You know your body is a credit card no matter what choices you make.”
-“Part of me was glad to have learned a tough lesson early – life could take everything from you when you weren’t paying attention”
-“I have the baby monitor in one hand and a margarita in the other. Is this bad parenting?”
-“So much of what we all did, to be fair, was a valiant attempt to distract ourselves from the fact that we were going to die, and none of us knew when or how or what the fuck we should do with ourselves in the meantime.”
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