5 HUGE STARS!!!!
“Becoming Calder” is a beautiful story told with vivid imagery and with both heart-warming and heart-wrenching emotion. Ms. Sheridan paces the book expertly, with gradual character and plot build, which mirrors the events in the writing. The story then speeds to its peak and, before you know it, it breaks off, leaving you wanting more. The language and storytelling begin in a serene fashion, which can perhaps be interpreted as slow, but this is all with purpose. Because of the strong and indelible climax of the story, you don’t realize from the outset of the reading experience of this book that you actually needed that peaceful beginning and introduction to the story. The character of Calder is chivalrous, warm, and appealing as are all of the characters.
While all of the main and tertiary characters have traits and situations that tug at your heartstrings, making them not only memorable, but lovable, it is the characters’ tribulations and struggles that make this book masterful. The book’s setting is one that is unconventional and guaranteed to make you feel uncomfortable; however that is what makes it so poignantly beautiful. Generally, people do not like to feel uncomfortable, because those emotions are harder to deal with. Happy, sad, angry, disappointed, etc. are easier for us to discern because we know how to easily file them away in our brains. Uncomfortable is foreign and unknown, thus making them more difficult to experience. We often don’t know how to deal with settings and situations of which we don’t understand, because they either make us evaluate our own settings and values or they hit closer to home than we want to recognize.
Should that keep you from reading this book? Absolutely not.
We read to escape. We read to fantasize. We read to imagine. We read to feel. What better way to feel an array of emotions (that you can control) and experience the marvel of pure, unadulterated emotion? Ms. Sheridan has created an unforgettable romance- a patch of beauty -in some of the grittiest of circumstances, which have not only been a reality for many people, but currently remain the reality for millions of people around the world. If you find it difficult to see beyond the book’s setting, then simply re-imagine it to be something relatable to you. We have all overcome obstacles in our lives. We have all, at some point, struggled to find ourselves, find love, and find our true core values in the midst of a vast pool of opinions, information, and influences in our lives, and you will love yourself for being able to sympathize with these characters’ plight.
At its very core, this book teaches us that there is beauty, even in the ugliest of circumstances, and that is something to which everyone can relate.
“Becoming Calder” by Mia Sheridan is unlike anything you have encountered before. This book and its companion and follow-up novel “Finding Eden” are very special to me for a multitude of reasons. I firmly believe these novels are Ms. Sheridan’s best yet, and while they are companion novels and were released simultaneously, they both deserve their own reviews as they are not the retelling of the same story.
GET THIS BOOK TODAY!!!!
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