Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski
Series: no
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Date: Feb. 26, 2013
How did I get this book? free from ARCycling for an honest review - thank you!
My Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
GoodReads | Author | Publisher

I really struggled with giving this book a rating because I was left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I found it rather slow and it took me a very long time to finish. The story was interesting, but not as compelling as I had hoped it would be. On the other hand, the writing is beautiful and the characters are quite endearing. Bonaventure Arrow is a special little boy I won't soon forget.

Essentially this book is about moving on, letting go, and healing the wounds of tragedy. There is a lot of grief, sorrow, and guilt being experienced by the adults in Bonaventure's life and these characters are essentially "stuck." Bonaventure brings joy to their lives and helps them find peace in his own unique way. The big "family secret" was fairly easy to figure out, but that doesn't detract from the power of that secret or how it shaped the story. There are a lot of religious undertones, but I don't feel this book is "preachy" in any way. Religion plays different roles for the various characters and it's interesting to see how it affects each of them. I found the interplay of religion and guilt particularly interesting since I was raised Catholic. Let's just say it's a subject I find intriguing.

I would certainly recommend this book, but it's probably not for everyone. If you are a fan of magical realism or are looking for something a little bit unique, give this one a try. I may not have been flying through the pages, but this book really made me think and I'm glad I read it.

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This book counts toward my reading goals for:
2013 ARC Reading Challenge
Clean Sweep ARC Challenge

11 comments:

  1. Oh, nice spoiler free review. :-) Glad you felt you got something from this one.

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  2. I think, from what you've said, I'd probably find it to be similar - hard to rate, the slowness but that it's ultimately interesting. It seems as though the positive outweighs the negative so I'd give it a read.

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    1. Sometimes I feel I'm being a little unfair when a book is slow, but it really does color my opinion, at least a little bit. It was ultimately worth it and parts of it moved much faster than others.

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  3. If it made you think, then I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time :)

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  4. I sometimes hate those books where I finish reading them and I just can't decide how I feel about them. It makes it really hard when I go to give it a star rating. Great review! I'll keep this one on my TBR pile but I don't think I'll hurry up and get it.

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    1. Sometimes I wish I didn't do star ratings, but it's not usually so difficult to rate! It is a worthwhile read if you get around to it at some point.

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  5. Great post...thanks for your thoughts. I don't think this would be for me.

    THANKS for the review.

    Stopping by from Cym's Book Party.

    Elizabeth
    Silver's Reviews
    My Blog

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  6. Christine, thanks for adding this to the library. Cheers

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I'd love to hear what you think :)