The Father's Tale part two +

Oh my goodness.

This book is SO achingly beautiful.

Mr. O'Brien is a master at weaving a story within a story within a story.  

I have toted my hard back around with me everywhere recently and try as I might, I am horribly hard on books.  I dripped avocado down the side of this one, spilt coffee on a page, and then split the hard cover...so I need to see if that can be repaired before the entire book becomes unbound.  But...it was worth it.  

It was so, so worth it.  

The night that the hardcover split was the night I coerced my husband in to running in to the store (instead of me) just so I could snatch ten more minutes sitting in the car reading, by the light of those parking lot pole lights.

There are so many things I want to share about this book...

Like 

my favorite quote: (it was SO difficult to choose one, I guess honestly, I could accurately say that the ENTIRE book is my favorite quote - ha!)

But this one from pg. 650 has stuck with me and I've read it aloud to everyone who will pause for a moment and listen to me (even the dog!) 

(this is a journal entry from a man, not the main character Alex Graham, but a man, who has suffered and later comes to Alex's attention and touches his heart in a way...I am not sure there are words to accurately describe this...)

"It struck me recently that God wrote a large story in the lives of the people we read about in Scripture, and it was usually for reasons beyond their understanding.  He did so for several purposes, but one of them was to teach and illumine others who would not be born until thousands of years after the events.  Is it possible that He is "writing" our lives as well, for purposes we cannot begin to understand, and perhaps may never understand  in our lifetimes?  Our inexplicable sufferings, especially the blows of injustice, may be far more valuable to other souls than we can now guess.  Thus the necessity of thanking Him for all our trials, adversity, unjust sufferings, because the fruit of these may be of incalculable worth, though hidden from our eyes."

And 

my favorite moments: when they are ensconced in various homes and hotels scattered throughout Russia, wintery conditions holding them captive around a fireside; the author describing the characters' meals and rich conversations...completed sometimes with the rare treat of hot, rich coffee...I can almost smell and taste what Mr. O'Brien is describing.  I love scenes like this, they are always my favorite moments in books (the dinner at the Badgers house in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or the dinner scenes in the Weasley's wonderous house in Harry Potter, or Rat and Mole in The Wind in the Willows).

And finally, I leave you with this: PLEASE, please, PLEASE take the time to read this book.  

The Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig

I have been reading this aloud the last week and a half to my girls.  We are late to the game on this book...have heard about it for years, but at Christmas/Advent time there was always other books that were more pressing...until this year.  

OH MY GOODNESS - we love this book.  The emphasis on always doing the right thing is SUCH a great underlying theme.  Since I read it aloud and since my girls are NOT impressed with potty humor I did edit it some, but overall we loved this story.  (there are truly very few lines with this type of humor, so not much editing was called for). We laughed out loud, turned the page (or swiped it since we read the Kindle version) with bated breath, waiting to see what would happen next...this is an all around delightful read.