Book Review: The Correspondent
There are a couple of things I don't normally do. I don't normally participate in book clubs, because I read by mood and can't force myself to read something for a book club when I'm not in the mood. And I don't normally pick up contemporary fiction because I'm not interested in reading about ordinary people going through ordinary issues. Real life is ordinary enough, I want to read about the extraordinary.
But about a week ago a lady at my church invited me to join her little family and friends book club, and for a reason I still can't figure out I said yes. Then, I hadn't planned on reading the book they were discussing, since I only had a week to find and read it, but the library had it, so I made a token effort, thinking 1) I wouldn't like it and 2) I wouldn't finish it.
Well, I read a third of the book Friday night, then stayed up far too late finishing the whole thing Saturday night.
The book is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, and it is an epistolary novel (meaning told through letters) about a woman in her seventies as she repairs relationships and reckons with a tragedy in her past that had wide-reaching effects. It is a beautiful, tender story, and I will admit to crying a couple of times while reading the last third. It was very interesting to read Sybil's, the letter-writing main character, letters, the ones she wrote and some that she received, and I was invested in seeing her succeed in the things she attempted, such as auditing literature courses at the local college.
Within the letters, there were two mysteries or threads of tension that kept pulling me along because I wanted to know the answers, and the pace at which Evans revealed those answers was just about perfect.
This book reminded me a lot of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Bachman, which I read a few years ago and thought was wonderful. It has the same kind of "older person influencing younger person for the better" vibe, and if you've read either book you'll understand.
Like I said before, I don't read this kind of thing very often, but when I find gems like this it is always a nice surprise.
Overall, 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.
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