Interrupted: A Life Beyond Words
Interrupted: A Life Beyond Words
By Rachel Coker
Published by Zondervan
Published on March 6, 2012
Source: Finished Copy from Publisher
Summary taken from Goodreads:
Can love really heal all things? If Sam Carroll hadn't shown up, she might have been able to get to her mother in time. Instead, Allie Everly finds herself at a funeral, mourning the loss of her beloved mother. She is dealt another blow when, a few hours later, she is sent from Tennessee to Maine to become the daughter of Miss Beatrice Lovell, a prim woman with a faith Allie cannot accept. Poetry and letters written to her mother become the only things keeping Allie's heart from hardening completely. But then Sam arrives for the summer, and with him comes many confusing emotions, both toward him and the people around her. As World War II looms, Allie will be forced to decide whether hanging on to the past is worth losing her chance to be loved.
The Cover: I really loved the cover of this book. It has a very dreamy quality to it. There is a young teen girl who appears to be in an old-fashioned nightgown and the background is set in dark blues with stars. It was a very simple and very pretty cover. I could tell right away it was historical, but other than that I had no idea what this book is about. I think this cover is lovely and fits the story well. The only negative I had was the font- I really didn't the the font on this cover- it looked a bit awkward.
The Characters: Alcyone (Allie) Everly has an incredibly hard life. She grows up with a parent that is incredibly sick, but being so young she doesn't understand the full ramifications of becoming your parents caregiver at such a young age. Allie's father is not in the picture and she buries her mother in her early teens. With noone left to take care of Allie, she becomes a ward of the State and is moved north to Maine to live with a woman. Allie is a very sad girl and one who has been through too many hurts to let anyone close to her. The minor characters in this book: Beatrice, Allie's adopted sister, and her friends really shine in this book- I could absolutely picture them in my mind. Sam was a wonderful "hero" in this book. He was true to the time period and was some I wanted to root for.
The Story: This story is very short and at times reads like a novella. That is my complaint for this book. It has nothing to do with the story itself- the story was great. I felt, though, at some points in the story the author didn't take it far enough and rushed on to the next scene without fully exploring everything that could happen. There was enough drama in this story for a soap opera- it was teeming with angst and sadness. I loved seeing Allie develop through the story and finally have her "A-ha" moment that perhaps the ideas she had about everyone else were completely off base. I enjoyed this story and loved reading about a time period that isn't written about often enough. I didn't realize the author was a teen herself until I finished reading the book- and to be honest, I couldn't tell. I though the voice of the narrative was mature and well thought out- like any adult novelist.
