Somewhere In Between

Product Information

Even though it's a challenging read, I found myself having to put little effort into following the story. I still can't tell you what happened exactly, but I went with the flow and finished it in two reading sessions. Not to sound like an overly spiritual Sue or anything, but I guess I just 'felt' it. Halfway through the book, I even had to cry a little, something which happens rarely while reading, not even when one of my favourite characters dies. Meet Amara, an ordinary twenty-eight-year-old woman trying to navigate her way through life. Amara is a full time carer for her mum, her life isn' t easy but is fairly routine, until one night. She joins her friends at an exclusive BDSM club, somewhere she hasn' t been for so long. Virgil is without a voice due to throat cancer and sometimes uses an electrolarynx or write notes. His very rich and poignant story is told by the narrator. I appreciated passages in which the details were meticulous and meditative.

This is one reminded me of China Mieville - you are either willing to go with it and be okay with ambiguity or not because the book may be about the actual characters and actions/plot or it may entirely be a metaphor for something else and you may never know which. Or maybe it's both. Or neither. The story is lyrical, beautiful, heart breaking. It says a lot with very few words, written in stark, spare, lyrical prose that wonderfully captures loss, depression, anxiety, and yearning. I couldn't put it down and devoured it in two days. It's been a while since a book had that effect on me.

Advance Praise

urn:lcp:somewhereinbetwe0000gill_c2q8:epub:588645a7-e475-4f49-9e6e-d51a0b44c79f Foldoutcount 0 Identifier somewhereinbetwe0000gill_c2q8 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8md8tx4q Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780340923511 I imagine Julie and her family dealing with the same questions while reconnecting to one another. Julie remembers Darla singing "Galway Bay" and "Danny Boy" when she was just eight years old. Magnolia, a wannabe punk who has just been dumped by her super-cool boyfriend, Zane, is wandering aimlessly on her way home when she meets Rom; a boy who, unbeknownst to her, has been staring longingly at her and her technicolor hair all school year. Their strange friendship becomes even stranger when together, they discover an alternate universe that is much like their own, but so very different. This "in-between" place becomes a refuge for them; a refuge from school, life, and often themselves. While Darla sounds like a sassy teenager and refers to herself as a "dead white girl," she realizes she can't move on until everyone she loves lets her go. ISBN 978-1-949759-47-1 This is for the ones who are somewhere in between their heartache and healing.

There's some mystery about the couple, Julie and Ian O'Dale. A tragedy has led to Julie leaving her career as a real estate agent and it seems they have lost a daughter. The silence that engulfs them is grief unexpressed. They are in a state, hanging on by a thread, between existing and living fully, between being parents and not having a living child. A conversation at Tim Horton's (a coffee shop) begins the story of a couple looking to buy a ranch in the Chilcotin region of British Columbia. Then the landscape takes over and the first chapter becomes a beautiful description of the expanse of land. It helps to ground readers in place and introduces one of the forms of silence explored in Somewhere In-Between. This particular silence is an appreciation of the surroundings: the old-growth forest, the willow-lined creek and "a haze of coastal mountains." The book is about changes—the ones that you can control, and the ones that you can’t. It’s about commitment and friendship. It’s about the stages in between where you have nothing but the unknown ahead of you. The story felt genuine, and the conclusion was one I figured out, but I wasn’t quite sure of the how. I will leave that for you to discover. If you're expecting some YA romance with a bit of urban fantasy mixed up with it, you're going to be in for an interesting (no pun intended) ride. My GOD, this book was intense!I don't always read novels like this, when I do it is very rare. Lately all I have read was surrealism and satire. This novel kind of falls in between paranormal/ supernatural and contemporary. It's a very sweet and touching novel. Nature is a big thing, a theme. There is a whole feast of description of the beautiful land that the three main characters Julie, Ian, and Virgil Blue inhabit. The book cover is also beautiful, and I'm assuming that it is portraying the land in the book. Despite it all though the one responsible for her death remains a mystery, glimpses of hidden hate within the characters belying an ending that tears the heart out and leaves it in tatters. Hosmer's ability to touch on real family drama and what one will endure for the sake of their children, paints life into these ordinary people who could live down the street from any one of us.