Book ~ "Before I Wake" (2008) Robert J. Wiersema

From Robert J. Wiersema ~ Tragedy can strike at any time. In a single moment of distraction, in one instant’s miscalculation.

On a beautiful spring day, three-year-old Sherry Barrett is injured in a hit-and-run accident. Her devastated parents, Simon and Karen, wait by her bedside, hoping for a miracle ... one that doesn’t come. Told that she will never recover, they agree to remove her from life support. And then the miracle occurs. Sherry doesn’t die. But neither does she wake.

Meanwhile, Henry Denton, who was driving the truck that nearly killed Sherry, attempts suicide. Unable to die, he finds himself in a place of darkness, somewhere between this world and the next, invisible to all but a group of mysterious and downtrodden men. Haunted by his own guilt, Henry struggles to understand this limbo and what he must do to free himself.

Under the pressure of caring for their child, the fissures in Simon and Karen’s marriage become gaping wounds, and the family is pushed to the point of collapse. And then pushed even further by the undeniable fact that their little girl, trapped in her living death, has become a healer.

As the world turns its lens on the family, and the sick and dying arrive to be cured, Simon and Karen must decide whether or not to allow these “pilgrims” access to their daughter. At the same time, a larger battle is brewing – one that has been raging for close to two thousand years, and one that might yet claim the lives of Sherry and her family.

Weaving together disparate voices, Robert J. Wiersema’s brilliant debut novel sheds light on the inner lives of characters struggling against tragedy, finding each other and themselves, in the darkness. In exploring how hope can be renewed in the face of unimaginable sorrow, Before I Wake reveals the power of forgiveness, and the true nature, and cost, of miracles.

I picked up this book because a woman is the focus group I did last month raved about it ... she couldn't put it down!

I liked the writing style. And it was interesting to read each person's point of view.

And I didn't mind the story of Karen, Simon and Sherry ... though I found Karen rather pathetic and bland.

I wasn't buying into Sherry being a healer ... or that Henry was visual to some but not to others ... or the battle that has been brewing for thousands of years ... and there was way too much religion in it.

So would I recommend it? If you are looking for something different and buy into some of this stuff, then yes.

But it wasn't my kind of story.