When Will The Heaven Begin - This is Ben Breedlove's Story by Ally Breedlove

When Will The Heaven Begin?: This is Ben Breedlove’s Story.  Penguin Group (USA). October 2013. 320 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451239648.

Ben Breedlove just wanted to be an ordinary person but that was impossible as he was born with HCM or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  This condition meant that Ben’s heart could stop at any moment.  While certain strenuous activities or foods could send Ben into atrial fibrillation and eventual HCM, heart failure could also happen at any time, including while he was sleeping.  This was an amazing burden for his parents to bear; yet like so many parents with children with special physical needs, they lived with this reality, in fact lived as normal life as one could live under their unique circumstances.  The story of Ben is not about illness but about living with the knowledge that one is blessed with what one has and that eventually passing to another life is okay, in fact, more than okay.  For Ben that faithful knowledge was a product of experience.

Before that special event occurred, however, Ben had to deal with numerous medical tests and curtailment of his eating and play habits as a child.  His parents were shocked to learn of this condition, a thickening of the heart muscle which would worsen over time, and the fact that there was no surgery or medicine that could cure it or even ease.  While he was given medications which could ease the symptoms, he had to learn to live with it.  Ben is depicted as a pleasant child and teen who loved to play tricks on his family, enjoy his friends, and developed a special love for making videos.  Close to his parents and sisters, he was a normal person whose condition kept everyone on alert as to the slightest changes in his physical appearance.  He even tried some less strenuous sports such as wake surfing but after one particular experience of a fractured ankle was unable to continue what he loved. 

As Ben grew older, he began making videos for YouTube on just about every topic of interest to teens such as dating, spirituality, etc.  Eventually he made a video about his own heart condition and the experience he had in which he clearly knew he was on his way to heaven.  He knew from that point on that death wasn’t to be feared; instead he actually welcomed it, very aware that he even longed for it as he knew his heart couldn’t hold out much longer.  The video was called, “This is My Story,” Ben’s account of his near death experience told through the use of flash cards.  The questions he ultimately asked on these flash cards, before his untimely death at the age of 18 years old, concerned whether the reader believed in God, as well as asking what “you” are doing with the life you are living.  Potent words from a teen in a poignant condition. 

When it comes to a person’s demise coming at a young age, with the consciousness of its looming presence, each person almost always concentrates on the special qualities of everyday living in this earthly environment.  But Ben’s life laced with compassion and humor is about what each person is doing in this life that has value and purpose and how important it is to consider the afterlife of heaven. No, there’s no fear here at all.  Heaven is described in a highly appealing way and depicted as an appealing experience that should be welcome.  It seems that it can’t be anything other than ‘heavenly.” 

Words cannot fully capture the unique quality of this story about Ben Breedlove.  Only the hardest of hearts could read this book and not be deeply moved.  It is a tribute to the passionate love of life and God that was Ben’s primary concern and his legacy to the world he left, which is awaiting a reunion with Ben in the heaven he so lovingly describes!  Ally Breedlove has written a fitting tribute that is more about her son’s message of love to a hopefully wide audience! Nicely done, indeed, Ally Breedlove!

Between a Mother and Her Child: A Novel by Elizabeth Noble

Between a Mother and Her Child: A Novel.  Elizabeth Noble. Penguin Group (USA). September 2013. 448 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780425267936.

There is no deeper love than that between a mother and child and there is no greater loss than that experienced by a parent who has lost that beloved child to death.  The life of Maggie and Bill Barrett changed irrevocably the day their son, Jake who died in the tsunami of Indonesia in 2004. Bill chooses to grieve in a totally different  way from Maggie, and their daughter Aly.  But Maggie senses that Aly is drawing farther and farther away from her. Yes she excels in her school work and is planning to go to med school but she’s like a taught spring ready to lash out and Maggie doesn’t have a clue about Aly’s grief and how she perceives the time since that momentous day that forever altered their lives.

Maggie asks Bill to leave and he begins to move on with his life which includes meeting a women with whom he is developing a loving relationship, different  though it is from what Maggie and Bill once had.  Maggie, on the other hand, relies totally on her emotional connection with her sister Livy or Liv, who lives in Australia and now on another anniversary of Jake’s death visits Maggie in England.  But Liv’s life is about to change as she will soon marry Scott. She would do anything for her sister but can she be as available to Maggie’s needs and should she be.   And Aly will meet someone special too, a surprise to the reader, the outcome which is unique and very real!

Liv comes up with a potential solution that is also unique, placing an ad for a companion for Maggie.  Kate seems to be the ideal person for this painful and burdened household, yet she has issues of her own that slowly become obvious due to Aly’s curiosity and the action that flows from her need to know.  This is a subplot that arrives at the perfect place in this poignant story.  There are, it turns out, many ways to lose a child besides death.

While this book does have some very sorrowful moments, for the most part there is a healthy mixture of tension, laughter, relief, release and more that is so engaging and keeps the reader glued to the pages.  The author clearly “knows” the emotional and mental map of losing a child and how the survival mode and more than survival mode can regress or progress.  Whether the reader knows or doesn’t know is irrelevant; this novel is lovingly and carefully crafted, unforgettable!  It deserves a wide, wide audience!  Well done, indeed, Ms. Noble!

You Knew Me When: A Novel by Emily Liebert

You Knew Me When: A Novel.  Emily Liebert. Penguin Group (USA). September 2013. 352 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451419446.

Kitty Hill and her father moved to Manchester, Vermont in the 1990s after they lost Kitty’s mother.  It was just the right thing as Kitty quickly realized when she met a young girl exactly her age, Laney Marten, who lived two doors away from Kitty’s new home.  In between lived a single woman, Luella Hancock, who also became a wise, loving presence in Kitty’s life and who allowed the girls to swim in her pool, eat her food, and just visit.  Her home was their home.  Kitty and Laney immediately bond as best friends, “sisters” as they quickly realized.  Reading of how their friendship forms and deepens is delightful and how seamlessly Luella shares their lives as well.  But when Kitty falls in love, that all changes so quickly that it seems their bond is irrevocably broken until years later a second chance is given to them by Luella!

In between the missing years, Kitty has become a high-powered executive at a Manhattan, New York cosmetics company.  She’s a definite Type A personality who works around the clock, rarely sleeps more than a few hours, and has forgotten all about Laney and Luella in that small New England town.  But she is quite shocked to receive a letter with a message that forces her to return to Vermont and interact with Laney.  It initially isn’t pretty at all as caustic barbs and nasty comments fly, with each trying to either avoid or hurt each other.  Little by little, however, they learn to connect again but it’s a long, arduous journey at times.  As difficult as it seems, Emily Liebert knows exactly where to insert fluctuate scenes that forebode disaster one minute and hope the next.  Ironically, it’s not unbearable at all to read; in fact, it’s mesmerizing and the reader is rooting for a positive outcome, never sure where it will all unwind or mesh together.

You Knew Me When: A Novel is a novel about the often-heard phrase, “forgive and forget.” So many words have been written about others in which one will claim it’s impossible to do both, others who claim one can do only one, and others who say one can choose to do both.  Katherine’s journey leads her to discover the blend of Kitty and Katherine she is meant to be, and Laney realizes one can focus on dreams and betrayal of same that one totally misses what could really be even better than the original, ideal vision for the future.

This is a wonderfully constructed novel that will astonish, fascinate, and grip readers to every page.  The characters are vividly portrayed and interact with such dynamic dialogue that you won’t want to put the book down.  There’s an additional feature about style in dresses, jewelry and cosmetics that is unique in its own way that will appeal both to those who love beauty and style and those who’ve never quite given much attention to it.  Most of all, it’s about what it takes to mutually heal in a relationship, without any tragic drama.  A sense of humor and openness to the meaning of love in real, everyday situations is vital and Liebert masterfully presents the perfect blend. This reviewer loved this novel and highly, highly recommends it to everyone!  

The Cleaner of Chartres by Sally Vickers

The Cleaner of Chartres.  Sally Vickers. Viking Adult. June 2013. 304 pp. hbk. ISBN #: 9780670785674.

Agnes Morel is a quiet, gentle soul who arrived at the famous Chartres Cathedral and wound up a steady presence as a cleaner and as an inspiration to many who were daily visitors to the cathedral.  There’s Abbe Paul who has lost his faith in God after the death of his parents but who begins to see the face of God again in this young faithful cleaner.  No, it’s not her faith in God that is so moving; it’s her constant presence and quiet, gentle support. She seems to know exactly what to say and when to say it – or when to keep silent and just listen or “be” present to the Abbe as he talks and talks and talks.

Then there’s the restorer of the cathedral ceilings and walls, Alain Fleury, who is an artist in his own right in some ways as he describes the careful work he does. He find strength and companionship in Agnes whom he can always see from where he works.  And there is the Professor whose home is desperately in need of being put in order and the arrogant woman who hires Agnes looking for scandal in the ugliest way possible.

But just as one is unsure where this is going, the author begins to interweave past scenes from Agnes’s life, a life of abandonment, torture, predatory attack, and the consequent mental collapse she suffers, told in the most eloquent, heart-rending scenes.  Then and only as this past story evolves does one realize how amazing it is that Agnes has come out of this hellhole of darkness to become the saint-like human being she is; let no one believe it was an easy journey and there was certainly no known plan that led her to this point.  One may only speculate that somehow the hand of God often appears in the goodness of men and women and in spite of the worst one can imagine in other men and women as well.

The Cleaner of Chartres is an amazing, beautiful, harsh, peaceful, gracious story with such a profoundly sensitive yet real depiction.  Quite simply astonishing and highly recommended!