Rating: 4 stars

Cliff Notes: Some of the passages in this book just took my breath away. It was a short book, but I slowed down to not miss them so it took me a little longer to read it. I also loved the dialect and phrases and these cannot be read on Sue Speed.

“I went right back to bathing Sylvaney. Sometimes you have to set grief down and not carry it right then, but do not fret. It will squat right there and wait for you to pick it back up.”

Arty Norton

Full Summary: Like life, this book was a trudging of daily hardships at times. It would just outline this happened and that happened, then this happened so that happened. But then there was a flurry of joy or tragedy and the processing of it all. These parts of the story are what kept me engaged in the read. One of my favorite parts was around the deaths that occurred. Stay with me – it is not morbid.

At one point in the novel when Arty is grieving a death of a loved one, she refers to something she was taught. That you actually are born twice – once to the world and once to Heaven. I find this so comforting, like a way that death is a beginning, not an ending.