Why not, indeed? I shrugged. I'd studied English because I loved to read, but I didn't really want to teach or get a PhD. The thought of starting something tangible with Jake sounded fucking wonderful.
After all, in a world of countless peril, whom better to stay near than a man who could tame fire?
This novel kept me guessing the whole time as to how Alice and Carla would suddenly intersect. Alice is a barbecue owner in Texas, and she and her husband have been wanting a baby for a long time now, even though she found out she can't conceive. Carla is an illegal immigrant - or, technically, hoping to be an illegal immigrant, as she and her brother live in Honduras while her mother works a minimum wage job in Texas.
Official synopsis:
In this heartrending and poignant novel, award-winning author Amanda Eyre Ward tells the story of Alice Conroe, a forty year old Texas barbecue owner who has the perfect life, except she and her husband long for a child. Unable to conceive, she’s trying desperately to adopt but her destiny is quickly altered by a young woman she’s never met.Fearless thirteen-year-old Carla Trujilio is being raised by her grandmother in Honduras along with her four year old twin brothers. Her mother is sending money home from Texas where she’s trying to make a better life for her family, but she only has enough to bring one son to her. When Carla’s grandmother dies, Carla decides to take her fate into her own hands and embarks on a dangerous journey across the border with Junior, the twin left behind.
Two powerful journeys intersecting at a pivotal moment in time: Alice and Carla’s lives will be forever and profoundly changed. Heartbreaking, emotional, and arresting, this novel is about finding the courage to trail blaze your own path in life with faith, hope and love, no matter the struggle or the tragedy.
My original theory was that maybe Carla was Alice's mother, and this was a flashback, because they never really say what era Carla is in; however, later in the book, we find out they are both in present-day, or at least, their stories are being told in present day, so that theory was incorrect.
Both stories are compelling, yet very different, and the chapters alternate from each POV. Alice works at the BBQ place that she and her husband own, and her days are full, yet something is still missing: a child.
On the other hand, Carla, a child herself, at 12 or 13 years old, has had to grow up very quickly, as she tries to travel from Honduras, to Mexico, to the U.S., in the hopes of reuniting with her mother and her other brother. Hard decisions must be made, and her story is definitely the more harrowing of the two.
This novel drew me in very quickly, and soon I was racing to finish it. I really wanted to find out how Alice and Carla were connected, and you do find out their connection, but not until the very end of the book. Both Alice and Carla have or have had grief in their life, but in very different ways, and the book will give you an interesting perspective on illegal immigration: that of the arduous journey that the soon-to-be immigrant must endure to get him/herself to the United States.
5 stars out of 5.
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*Disclosure: I received an e-copy of this novel from NetGalley for reviewing purposes. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.
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The Same Sky
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