ELEANOR
A Novel
by
Jason Gurley
Time is a river, and it flows in a circle.
-unknown
BOOK DETAILS
(from Amazon)
Eleanor and Esmerelda are identical twins with a secret language all
their own, inseparable until a terrible accident claims Esme’s life.
Eleanor’s family is left in tatters: her mother retreats inward, seeking
comfort in bottles; her father reluctantly abandons ship. Eleanor is
forced to grow up more quickly than a child should, and becomes the
target of her mother’s growing rage.
Years pass, and Eleanor’s painful reality begins to unravel in strange ways. The first time it happens, she walks through a school doorway, and finds herself in a cornfield, beneath wide blue skies. When she stumbles back into her own world, time has flown by without her. Again and again, against her will, she falls out of her world and into other, stranger ones, leaving behind empty rooms and worried loved ones.
One fateful day, Eleanor leaps from a cliff and is torn from her world altogether. She meets a mysterious stranger, Mea, who reveals to Eleanor the weight of her family’s loss. To save her broken parents, and rescue herself, Eleanor must learn how deep the well of her mother’s grief and her father’s heartbreak truly goes. Esmerelda’s death was not the only tragic loss in her family’s fragmented history, and unless Eleanor can master her strange new abilities, it may not be the last.
Years pass, and Eleanor’s painful reality begins to unravel in strange ways. The first time it happens, she walks through a school doorway, and finds herself in a cornfield, beneath wide blue skies. When she stumbles back into her own world, time has flown by without her. Again and again, against her will, she falls out of her world and into other, stranger ones, leaving behind empty rooms and worried loved ones.
One fateful day, Eleanor leaps from a cliff and is torn from her world altogether. She meets a mysterious stranger, Mea, who reveals to Eleanor the weight of her family’s loss. To save her broken parents, and rescue herself, Eleanor must learn how deep the well of her mother’s grief and her father’s heartbreak truly goes. Esmerelda’s death was not the only tragic loss in her family’s fragmented history, and unless Eleanor can master her strange new abilities, it may not be the last.
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Crown; Reprint edition (January 12, 2016)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1101903511
- ISBN-13: 978-1101903513
AUTHOR
Jason Gurley is the author of GREATFALL, THE MAN WHO ENDED THE WORLD, and the fiction collection DEEP BREATH HOLD TIGHT, among other works. His stories have appeared in the anthologies LOOSED UP THE WORLD and HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!!!! He was raised in Alaska and Texas, and now lives and writes in Portland Oregon
REVIEW
All parents at one time or another want or need desperately to get away from being a parent. That's not natural according to the world, but it's the truth. You, as a parent go through such a mixture of emotions, love and resentment, regret and joy and so much more. Sometimes it seems as though the harder you try it's never enough. It's never good enough.Love isn't always the answer. We don't talk about it. But Eleanor does. This is a story of a girl who is dealing with grief way beyond her years. Eleanor goes on a quest to heal what is wrong with her family, but can that be done. In the background, parental failure rears its ugly head. Getting away from everything is a strong powerful emotion. Sometimes you feel like your marriage and kids are taking the breath and life out of you. You just need a few moments, but there never seems to be those few moments. There are times that being a spouse or parent can make you feel as though you only exist for everyone else, not for yourself. In this book the characters become free either through divorce, death, addiction or just plain denial. But you can't just leave your child. Eleanor was left alone, not physically but mentally. There's always that saying, "What goes around, comes around." Eleanor tries her best to fix the broken with love but as she does this, freedom turns to regret,guilt and then resentment. That in turn at last turns into empathy and forgiveness. Everybody has that flaw, WE FAIL. We fail sometimes as parents, as mates and just as ordinary people. No matter what you may think or want to think, you are not alone in wanting to leave it all sometimes. This book is an amazing book of truth, even though it may be hard to swallow. This is a story of a young girl torn by a tragedy and trying to right it. But can it be fixed? The book will take hold of you from page one and won't let you go. There were times I was confused but as I read along, it all started to make sense. The book has a darkness about it with suicide and addiction happening. But those are facts of life. They happen every day. The author allowed the characters the room to be who they really are without trying to write over their flaws and problems.I would suggest this book for any parent or adult care taker. It might give you a little lift, a little hope on those dark days.
I loved the cover. Very descriptive without words.
I loved the cover. Very descriptive without words.
I received a complimentary copy of the book from Blogging for Books and the author, Jason Gurley, in exchange for my unbiased view. No other compensation took place.
I would give this book 4 STARS.
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