The Secret to Hummingbird Cake by Celeste Fletcher McHale

This is one of those books that I'm left shaking my head and nodding it both at the same time. I'm simply not sure what to make of it.

First off, I don't classify it as a real Christian book. Yes, the character who died seemed to have a faith in God, but it wasn't mentioned a lot. The main character spend most of the book ranting at God. And the language wasn't what I expected in a Christian book published by a Christian publishing company. So in that regard, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a bit more depth.

On the other hand, the depth of the friendship of these three women is a rare find. They did everything together, actually they did too much together in my mind. I have some really good friends, but there is no way they would accompany me to all of my prenatal visits and to the birth of my child. Sorry guys, no can do!! And there is no way I would go with them to theirs. Actually that whole idea is so preposterous it can make me laugh. But on the other hand, these three friends stuck it out through thick and thin and when one of them is diagnosed with cancer, the other two rally around and stuck with her all the way to the end.

So that is the reason for the mixed feelings here. It was a good read, but...

I do want to share a couple of quotes from the book that I did think were inspiring and just very good.

This one was said by Laine, the lady that died, at a classmate's funeral. "'I know this is sad,' she said, 'and I'm sad too, especially for his family. But keep hearing people say, "Isn't it tragic because he had his whole life in front of him." But what difference does that make? It's not how long you live; it's what you leave behind. Ricky was a great guy. Everybody loved him. That's an amazing way to be remembered.'"

And this also by Laine, "You are responsible for what you do. No matter what you go through, no matter what happens to you, no matter how much someone hurt you, the choices you make are ultimately your own." As you can tell, she was the mature one of the bunch.

Those two things struck a chord with me. What am I leaving behind? I think of Cheryl Burkholder: I want to say the same thing--she had so much of life ahead of her. Her family needed her; her friends needed her, but she did make an impact in the time she was here. She was a great lady. Everybody loved her. She cared about people. That is a legacy I would like to leave behind me too. And Cheryl's life and the stories I hear now challenge me to make a difference as well.  Yes, I wish she were back here on this earth. I want to go hang out at their place, see Bentley, compare him and Amber, go garage saling together in Wausau again, but it's not going to happen. So I need to make the choice to go out from here, from this grief and become a better person for it. And that's not always easy to do because grief can be a heavy load.

This book was given my by Book Look Bloggers for the purpose of reading and writing a review. All opinions expressed are my own.