Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’m 40 today, folks.  I’m still trying to decide how I feel about that–but the deciding is going to take some time, because I just got back from Youth Conference, and writing this review means putting off my LONG-awaited shower even longer.

It’s going to be a short review.

Andrea Beaty’s Cicada Summer—Secrets of the Cicada Summer in newer editions, actually–has been sitting on my shelf, waiting for me, because I have loved about all of the books by her that I’ve read.  When I started it I was thinking my second girlie might enjoy it, but I’m still on the fence about that; it’s a mystery, really, but it’s also a story about grief in its myriad guises, and I worry that with her personality, she’ll find that aspect a bit too sad.  (As a parent, I found it heartbreaking.)  All of the characters we spend time knowing have lost at least one someone who mattered, although not always to death.   (A few of the losses are reversible, but not many.)  Lily is an elective mute who hasn’t spoken since she lost her brother; Tinny is a girl with troubles of her own who comes to live with her great-aunt in Lily’s town.  Their families and stories intertwine, of course, in a beautifully told story that doesn’t shy away from the hard things children can face in life.  That hot shower is beckoning too strongly for me to say more, but I’d definitely recommend this one, partly because it ends on a cathartic and hopeful note.  Let me know what you think!