Walking on Water, The Walk, #5

Walking on Water by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the fifth and final book of the Walk series, Evans returns Allan from his walk to his father's bedside in California. Mr. Christofferson, hospitalized with a heart attack - is in failing health. While the walk is indefinitely on hold, Alan sleeps at his childhood home, returning daily to the hospital to talk with his dad, mostly about their past and discuss the diary Allan had found. To Allan's dismay, he must let his father go and endure the final physical and emotional motions of laying him at rest. Only thereafter, encouraged by recent words of his father, does Allan return to his walk to the Florida Keys..


As Allan's walk was quite a journey, so is ours...may we all enjoy the cast of characters we meet along the way and keep those we love close to our heart....

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The Why of Things

The Why of Things: A Novel by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Winthrop pens a well written fictional story of a daughter's suicide and her family's loss, grief, and return to hope centered around their summer home and a nearby deep, dark quarry. Like the quarry, a gaping hole has been left in the Jacobs' family and each member has their own way of dealing with the heart-wrenching aftermath and the sometimes non-answer of why bad things happen.

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The Wednesday Daughters

The Wednesday Daughters by Meg Waite Clayton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It all began with the Wednesday Sisters, published in 2008 - five moms that got together in the park to chat, discuss literary works, and share their lives with each other. Now Meg Waite Clayton is back with the Wednesday Daughters - daughters, of those same moms, that have grown up around each other and are closer than sisters. Hope goes on a trip to England to discover more about her mother, Allie, one of the five original moms who liked to write, who had recently passed. She carries her mother's ashes with her. Friends Anna and Julie, who are Wednesday sisters and who were also very close to Allie, travel with Hope, to give support but also looking for answers to their own issues at hand. Discoveries are made, new family is found, and secrets are unlocked and laid to rest.

All the references to Beatrix Potter really intrigued me, as did the setting in England's Lake District, as Allie spoke through Beatrix's voice and illustrations. Beautiful descriptions of the area bring the surrounding countryside to life.

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Family Pictures

Family Pictures by Jane Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When West Coast Eve meets East Coast Grace, a friendship begins until Eve spies a photo of Grace's father sitting in the middle of a table surrounded by other family photos. To Eve's horror she recognizes the man as her own father, who is married to her mother Sylvie. Things are already shaky as Eve is hiding an eating disorder. Lives and homes of both families unravel as untruths and secrets are uncovered.

It was a wee bit predictable as you could see all the circumstances come to a head and blow up around them. Most of the POVs are from the women but Maggie's youngest son, Buck, has a very small chapter. The very emotional chapters are when Eve, who can not control the downward spiral of eating and purging, is near death and her mother Sylvie knows she can not help her. There's also a series of rather lucky circumstances that lead both women in rebuilding their lives - very convenient.

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The Age of Miracles

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was middle school, the age of miracles, the time when kids shot up three inches over the summer, when breasts bloomed from nothing, when voices dipped and dove. Julia is eleven, going on twelve and like every California girl in middle school, worries about puberty, boys, homework - but never about if the earth's rotation would slow to a crawl. Soon nights are longer, days shorter, the landscape - scorched, birds fall from the sky and humans begin to feel the loss of equilibrium. Julia's mother becomes a hoarder of emergency supplies and food and her father stays away from home for long periods of time. In the middle of all this fear and upheaval, Julia falls in love.

I agree with a few other reviews that suggest this book would be better billed for a young adult audience - even the cover, to me, screams YA. At some parts the writer gives it a dreamy quality, glossing over the scientific reasons of the slowing and focusing on family and peer relationships. Regardless, it was an interesting book, dystopian in nature - even at the end you're not sure if earth will continue with some kind of life.

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