Review of a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde
For two teenagers, their bucket list isn’t about dying. It’s about finally living.
Highlights of the Story
The two main characters in Life, Loss, and Puffins are teenagers Ru Evans and Gabriel.
Ru lives in California with her mother. She is freakishly smart. She taught herself euclidean geometry at age seven and has a photographic memory and total recall. As the story begins, Ru is about to enter college, and she is only thirteen years old.
The college is 150 miles from Ru’s home, so her mother arranges for her to board with a family near the college campus. This family consists of a mother and her seventeen year old son, Gabriel.
Gabriel is very much an outsider like Ru. They both have trouble making friends; Ru due to her intelligence, Gabriel because he has his own way of ‘being’, which includes wearing makeup on his eyelashes and nail polish on his fingers.
Ru and Gabriel, perhaps because they recognize the ‘uniqueness’ in each other, form a deep sibling-like bond. Being able to relate to someone else in their world that they can talk to is a first for each of them.
Originally, Ru’s mother planned to come pick up Ru each weekend, but the first few weeks she comes up with excuse after excuse why she cannot come. Finally Ru gets Gabriel (who drives her to the college campus every day and picks her up in the afternoons after his own college classes) to drive her home to see her mom. She discovers her mom’s sister is there and that her mother is terminally ill. She had tried to keep this from Ru. Quite soon, Ru’s mother dies and Ru is expected to go live in Kentucky with her miserable aunt, her only remaining relative and one she has never gotten along with.
The Trip of a Lifetime
Not able to bear the thought of life with her aunt without ever really having a normal life (wanting to go from being a smart person to just being a ‘person’), Ru tells Gabriel what she would like to do. Gabriel agrees to help her fulfil her ultimate dream. They set off from California and head for Canada. Ru’s bucket list includes seeing the aurora borealis and the Atlantic puffins in the wild.
Summary
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| Atlantic Puffin (Source: Pixabay) |
Ru & Gabriel know that they will be in trouble when caught, but their special friendship, combined with help in unexpected places, combine to help them both see what it feels like to really ‘live’ as a normal person as they take life one beautiful and spontaneous day at a time.
This is a delightful feel-good, coming of age story about two young people you will really enjoy getting to know.
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*Book Review of Life, Loss, and Puffins written by Wednesday Elf
This sounds like such a wonderful story, Elf! I am really looking forward to reading it. Learning to celebrate our uniqueness instead of trying to fit in is a tremendously valuable lesson.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the "normal" person reference. Some people are simply created to be special. Someone with Ru's intelligence is clearly one of those truly gifted individuals. Gabriel sounds like the perfect protective "brother" for someone too young to be cast into the world alone. This sounds like a wonderful book!
ReplyDeleteYou had me through this entire review. I already find myself invested in Ru and Gabriel. This story line someone speaks to my spirit. Great review.
ReplyDelete