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Book Review of The Sound of Us

The Sound of Us
The Sound of Us
Author: Sarah Willis
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
reviewed on + 44 more book reviews


A story about how chance changes the course of our lives, and I like to think, just when we need it to grow in a new direction. Alice, unmarried, 48 and an interpreter for the deaf has recently lost her twin brother in a car accident. She is awakened in the night by a wrong number from a small girl who's mother has left her alone. Instead of calling the police, she goes herself to stay with the child, but when the mother still hasn't returned, she is forced to call the police herself and the child is put in the foster care system. She decides to become a foster parent herself when the child, Larissa, refuses to speak to anyone, and eventually becomes her foster mom. The rest of the book is about how this chance meeting changes Alice, and enlarges her life in so many ways.
This is the first book I have read by this author, and I did not care for her blunt, abrupt writing style. It read more like an offical case history of foster care than a story about three dimensional people. This made is hard to relate to the characters, identify with them, or care too much about them personally. It was not a memorable read.