"These Nameless Things" by Shawn Smucker

These Nameless Things (Revell), by Shawn Smucker, was not what I expected.  Not sure why, but from the description I thought maybe our lead character escaped an evil cult and was waiting for his brother to escape as well.  It was not.  Our main character, Dan, lives in a village on a prairie just outside of the Mountain all of the villagers escaped.  As time goes on more and more villagers decide to leave the prairie and travel east.  Dan is afraid that everyone will leave before his brother escapes and he will be left all alone.  One night a storm rolls in and everyone starts to remember snippets of their past and secrets begin to be kept. Dan keeps a secret of his own as he helps a tormented welcome heal in his home without telling any of the other villagers.  His moral dilemmas pile up as he begans to trust the other villagers less and less.

It was slightly slow going, in the way of the finale of Lost-I kept going but was never quite satisfied.  Then I discovered that the author followed the idea of Dante's Inferno and everything made much more sense.  Give me a break that it took me a while; I've never read Inferno. Haha.

I'm not sure that I would recommend this to the general public but I do think my fiance would like it.  If you're like him and like to peel apart the layers of story to find themes and metaphors and symbolism you may like this book.  You will find themes such as grace, grief, guilt, and forgiveness.  

You may even discover that as important as it is to forgive others in order to experience the freedom and guilt and grief you may need to forgive yourself.

 A copy of this book was provided to me for review by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"The Key to Everything" by Valerie Fraser Luesse

The Key to Everything (Revell), by Valerie Fraser Luesse, is a coming of age story set post World War II.  Our main character is 15 year old Peyton Cabot who we are introduced do during some turbulent family events.  A tragic accident not only disrupts his entire family but also any chance he has to date the girl he is infatuated with.  To cope with what is going on around him Peyton decides  to retrace a journey his father took at his age-to ride his bicycle from St. Augustine, Florida to Key West.

I love the quick relationships Peyton makes along his journey, the adventures those relationships take him on, and the lessons he learns through them.  It touches on a way of the past that our busy world has forgotten, and it was truly beautiful to experience.  My only complaint about this book is at the beginning the story led you to believe that his parents relationship was possibly abusive then later remembered it as a relationship that had struggles because of WWII but the dream love story.  This sat funny for me, and I wish that the plot line in regards to that would have been more cohesive.

My Quarantine fun was that we bough new bicycles while I was reading this book.  It was fun to go on rides and have some of my thoughts lingering on a story that followed a bike ride.

Over all this story was very charming and a nice and easy summer read.

  A copy of this book was provided to me for review by the publisher in exchange for an honest review