Skip to main content

Book Review: The Sound of Gravel

I've been in a book hangover this week and so now I must share with you the book that did me in: 



Memoirs like this just don't happen everyday. Can you imagine pointing pen to paper and sharing your most private worries, your most traumatic experiences and the scariest, saddest moments of your life? Or what about reliving moments where you were scared, lost and worried? All of these things happen to Ruth, all before she is a teenager. 

The daughter of a polygamist, Ruth is lost among a sea of her family's life- she is one of over 40 siblings, most of whom she doesn't know exists until she is older. She learns at a very young age that without her help, her mother would not be able to handle her siblings, 2 of who are developmentally disabled.  They live in a dirt house with no electricity and have to navigate life with a "father" who divides his time among his multiple wives...

Because they live the polygamist lifestyle, Ruth's mother lives in Mexico, but once a month they make the illegal trip back to the States to gather food stamps and social security checks.

And when Ruth suffers unspeakable abuse from her stepfather, her life becomes even more of a struggle. 

There are things that Ruth, her siblings and her mother have to experience that I can't imagine anyone having to endure. But amazingly, Ruth becomes this amazing mother figure to her little sisters and brothers and she is so observing to those around her, which makes her this smart, empathetic and perceptive person that I would just die to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with. 

Because of her ability to survive, to care for her loved ones and for gaurdian angels like her grandparents, she is able to change her life...which at one point faced an outcome that could have been much, much different if Ruth wasn't the brave, smart girl that she was born to be... 

Read it. 

Currently, I am trying to get out of my slump by listening to Pretty Girls on audible and reading The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. I'm also slowly taking in Joyce Carol Oates' The Lost Landscape, which is unsurprisingly beautiful. Next up is When Breath Becomes Air and For The Love 


And P.S. I totally didn't mean for my most perfect Kate Spade travel coffee mug to make it into both of the pics in this blog. It was complete happenstance, but a completely cute coincidence that I'm not even sad about. 



Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM

    Love this mug!

    -Betsy
    www.goldwilldigger.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julie DanielleFebruary 2, 2016 at 10:00 AM

    That sounds like an interesting read for sure!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Irena BookDustMagicFebruary 2, 2016 at 10:25 AM

    ohh, thans for presenting this book to us. it sounds really, really interesting and I have never heard about it before.
    Good luck with your reading slump. I've read The Readers of Broken Wheel recommend and it was fun, hope it will help!

    ReplyDelete
  4. MeganFebruary 2, 2016 at 10:47 AM

    This sounds like an incredible book! Just added it to my book list now x

    Megan | http://www.megaanalicec.blogspot.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  5. MeghanFebruary 2, 2016 at 10:59 AM

    This actually sounds really good! Sad, but good.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Brittany@TheLadyLawyerFebruary 2, 2016 at 12:07 PM

    I will add this one to my list. Love that mug btw!

    ReplyDelete
  7. MicahFebruary 2, 2016 at 6:40 PM

    That book sounds heavy, but also inspiring and interesting. I'm going to look for it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownFebruary 7, 2016 at 10:46 AM

    Need to add this to my collection, sounds moving!

    Meme x

    www.thedayinthelifeof.co.uk

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Girl On The Train

If you follow  top book lists, you've more than likely heard of The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins If you still have a book hangover from Gone Girl like I do, you'll be happy about this twisted story. It's gritty, mean, obsessive and dark, just like Amy Dunn. Although it didn't get my heart racing, (a little too vague at some points) it did have twists that left me stunned.    Rachel is an alcoholic. A sad, lonely woman who tortures herself by riding a train everyday and looking out the window at her ex-husband's house. The house that used to be theirs together, only now it's him inside with his new wife, and their baby. And she's just a girl on a train.  She watches them, knows they had a baby girl because of the new pink curtains in the window. She can see them laughing and playing on the patio. And even though it kills her, she still watches them every day. She even starts daydreaming about the lives of their neighbors, a happy...
15 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

Ruth Ware always delivers when it comes to interesting and layered characters. The Turn of the Key is a thrilling account of Rowan Caine's experience as a live-in nanny in a luxurious smart home unlike anything she has ever seen. This mystery is the epitome of the saying "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" because even though moving into the home of the Elincourts is an upgrade from her tiny apartment and dead-end job, it comes at a steep price. Every chapter, there is something suspicious that kept me wondering if anyone in this suspenseful book was telling the truth. Which, is obvious in the first page because Rowan is writing a letter to a lawyer, from jail, because she's being held for murder. Who is Rowan? Did she come into the Elincourt's lives for a reason? She should have known something was wrong on the day she interviewed, when one of the children warned her to never come back. With a house full of surveillance cameras and parents who ar...
7 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Fault In Our Stars

            I wish I had enough words to describe this book to you. I'll just start with giving it this rating:   From GoodReads.com: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind. ...
19 comments
Read more