True Places by Sonja Yoerg – 347 pages
Book Blurb:
A girl emerges from the woods, starved, ill, and alone…and collapses. Suzanne Blakemore hurtles along the Blue Ridge Parkway, away from her overscheduled and completely normal life, and encounters the girl. As Suzanne rushes her to the hospital, she never imagines how the encounter will change her—a change she both fears and desperately needs. Suzanne has the perfect house, a successful husband, and a thriving family. But beneath the veneer of an ideal life, her daughter is rebelling, her son is withdrawing, her husband is oblivious to it all, and Suzanne is increasingly unsure of her place in the world. After her discovery of the ethereal sixteen-year-old who has never experienced civilization, Suzanne is compelled to invite Iris into her family’s life and all its apparent privileges. But Iris has an independence, a love of solitude, and a discomfort with materialism that contrasts with everything the Blakemores stand for—qualities that awaken in Suzanne first a fascination, then a longing. Now Suzanne can’t help but wonder: Is she destined to save Iris, or is Iris the one who will save her?
My Review: 4 stars
True Places started with a bang when a woman finds a hurt, young girl along the road and brings her to safety. Just with that bit of information at the beginning, I knew this small act of kindness would cause impactful circumstances to both of their lives. After all, not many people would pick up a stranger, whether it was a child or not. With scams aplenty that fly around Facebook and the news, one never knows I suppose.
Suzanne, the married woman and mother of two, becomes the yin to the young Iris’s yang. Where one lives among suburban materialism, the other comes from the woods (literally). They each possess something the other is lacking.
Although bringing Iris to her home is done with pure altruism, it causes much upheaval within the household, especially with Suzanne’s two teenagers. Each of them using dialogue that came across so realistically that I could see them speaking in my mind’s eye.
The messages brought to the surface were powerful. The most important, literally as the title suggests, is about finding your “true space”. Iris’s arrival forces Suzanne to reflect on her life, her past and her present and exactly when and how her life derailed. The language Yoerg uses is poetic and powerful. Iris’s description of her life and the nature around her were beautifully expressed and brought to life. There have been a lot of books, recently released, that focus on nature: its beauty, its power and its life force. I very much like this trend. This is the second book I’ve read by Sonja Yoerg and I’ve enjoyed them both. The author is skilled at providing complex and emotional storylines
Quotes I liked:
Everyone felt too much and not enough at the same time.”
– “Sometimes it takes a stranger to show you what should be obvious, how far you’ve drifted from who you want to be, from what’s right for you, your true place.”
-“What had the preschool teachers said to her and Whit about dealing with children with strong personalities? “Exercise their disappointment muscles.”
– “No one gives in without giving something up, and nothing is given up without cost.”
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