the next good book

Ordinary Grace

By William Kent Krueger

9.5/10
(9.5/10)

307 pages

What’s it about? It is the summer of 1961 in a small town in Minnesota.  Frank Drum is thirteen years old and his life is about to change.  Forty years later, Frank looks back at this summer and tells us the events that transpire.  While death plays a major role in the summer, so do family, faith, and forgiveness. What did I think? This was the best coming of age story I have read in years.  I savored every page.  Mr. Krueger captures what it must have felt to be a thirteen year old, coming to grips with hard realities, in that time and place.  This book has a mystery to keep you turning the page, characters that make you care, and much wisdom to impart. Should you read it? Yes!!!! Quote- “It seems to me that when you look back at a life, yours or another’s, what you see is a path that weaves into and out of deep shadow.  So much is lost.  What we use to construct the past is what has remained in the open, a hodgepodge of fleeting glimpses.  Our histories, like my father’s current body, are structures built of toothpicks.  So what I recall of that summer in New Bremen is a construct both of what stands in the light and what I imagine in the dark where I cannot see.”
What’s it about?
It is the summer of 1961 in a small town in Minnesota.  Frank Drum is thirteen years old and his life is about to change.  Forty years later, Frank looks back at this summer and tells us the events that transpire.  While death plays a major role in the summer, so do family, faith, and forgiveness.

What did I think?
This was the best coming of age story I have read in years.  I savored every page.  Mr. Krueger captures what it must have felt to be a thirteen year old, coming to grips with hard realities, in that time and place.  This book has a mystery to keep you turning the page, characters that make you care, and much wisdom to impart.

Should you read it?
Yes!!!!

Quote-
“It seems to me that when you look back at a life, yours or another’s, what you see is a path that weaves into and out of deep shadow.  So much is lost.  What we use to construct the past is what has remained in the open, a hodgepodge of fleeting glimpses.  Our histories, like my father’s current body, are structures built of toothpicks.  So what I recall of that summer in New Bremen is a construct both of what stands in the light and what I imagine in the dark where I cannot see.”

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