NSL Bookclub -  September 2012

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a story about a bi-racial girl, Rachel, who is being raised by her grandmother in Portland, OR. She was the lone survivor in a tragic event in which she lost her mother and siblings. She never saw her father again. The actual circumstances of the event are the mystery of the book, eventually realized at the end. This book conveys the struggle of identity and race and succeeds in demonstrating that race is still a way of defining others as a way of defining yourself, which is why Rachel felt so lost.

Most of the group felt as if this was more an introduction to the characters and that they could have been explored more. The different viewpoints felt disjointed. We were also unsatisfied with the ending. I personally remember yelling at the book ‘That’s it??!’.

Emotionally, you feel for this lost girl and feel depressed that there are real kids right now suffering the neglect and abuse faced by Rachel and Brick. And the fact that this book was inspired by real events gives it even more weight.


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