I didn’t anticipate the emotional clobbering I would receive this evening from a book I was reading.

I had picked up “A Monster Calls” at the library book sale last week. I had seen the cover and thought it looked interesting and a quick skim of the back made me decide to put it in the bag. It’s a kids book, intended for ages 12 and up, so I figured it would be a quick read. I hoped it would avoid the shallow characters and thin plotlines that typically run rampant in such books.

I read about a quarter of it yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it was written. This evening I figured I’d read a little more, but like any truly great book, it refused to be put down… So now I’ve finished the book and it is very late. My eyes are swollen and puffy from a mixture of allergies and the tears I shed over this story.

It was a poetic, haunting, and devastating tale of a child coming of age while navigating the heartbreaking reality of loss and grief. I had tears streaming down my face.

This is one that will stay with me for a very long time.

On a brighter note, we were invited to our friends’ house today for a non-Easter Easter egg hunt. The kids had such a wonderful time playing with their friends and hunting for eggs. They wore themselves to exhaustion.