"Gripping and Emotionally Moving"
Reviewed by Susan Dyer
Posted August 1, 2014
Fiction
I'm going to warn you right from the start. Once you start
LITTLE
MERCIES you won't be able to put it down. Right from the
very first
chapter, Heather Gudenkauf is going to pull you in and she
doesn't let you go until the
very last page. Your heart will break for Ellen and what
her and her family
are going through.
Ellen Moore is a social worker and has seen the worst
things that people can do to each other. Her life is very
busy between work
and her family, but she is handling it as best as she can.
Until one stifling
hot summer day, Ellen is called out to a domestic situation,
completely
distracted, and makes a horrible and heart breaking mistake.
What she
goes through because of what has happened, will tear at your
heart strings
and keep you wondering...there but for the grace of God...it
could
happen to anyone and does happen everywhere and sadly,
almost every
day.
Ten-year old Jenny Briard comes from a troubled family. Her
father is a
drunk and keeps moving her from place to place. If he has a
job, things are
good for a little while. Then before you know it, he loses
his job and starts
drinking again. Her mother left years ago, after one of her
boyfriends beat
Jenny up real bad.
LITTLE MERCIES is the story of how Ellen and Jenny
are both dealing with a difficult period in their lives and
how their paths
cross. You will want to hug Jenny and take her home with
you. How could
a ten-year old have to deal with so much?
LITTLE MERCIES also has another amazing character: Maudene,
Ellen's
loving and thoughtful mother, who gives unselfishly. I just
love her and I am
so happy that she is there for Jenny! The world needs more
people like
her. Jenny and her Dad are planning to move and are waiting
at the bus
station, but when the police arrest her Dad, Jenny ends up
in a bus
traveling on her own. When she gets to Iowa she is all alone
having to fend
for herself, until she meets Maudene, a local waitress who
comes to
Jenny's rescue.
LITTLE MERCIES is told in the alternating points of view of
Ellen and
Jenny as their worlds collide. While Ellen fights the legal
battles and her
husband and children are in a state of confusion and chaos,
her mother
takes runaway Jenny into her home.
LITTLE MERCIES is sometimes hard to read. The writing is
perfect, that
isn't the problem. It is reading about what some children
have to go
through with their own parents. That being said, I devoured
LITTLE
MERCIES and I know you will too. I have always enjoyed
Heather Gudenkauf's books
in the past and LITTLE MERCIES does not disappoint. I want
to tell
everyone I know to read LITTLE MERCIES.
LITTLE MERCIES makes you
face one of those terrifying "what ifs" which you really
never want to even
think about ... how would you cope if everything you loved
was at risk of
being taken away from you and it was all your fault? How
could you live
with yourself and what would you do? Would you be able to
be strong
enough to survive what Ellen went through? What about Jenny?
Their
stories are going to stay with you for a very long time.
SUMMARY
In her latest ripped-from-the-headlines tour de force, New
York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf shows how
one small mistake can have life-altering consequences… Veteran social worker Ellen Moore has seen the worst side of
humanity—the vilest acts one person can commit against
another. She is a fiercely dedicated children's advocate and
a devoted mother and wife. But one blistering summer day, a
simple moment of distraction will have repercussions that
Ellen could never have imagined, threatening to shatter
everything she holds dear, and trapping her between the
gears of the system she works for. Meanwhile, ten-year-old Jenny Briard has been living with
her well-meaning but irresponsible father since her mother
left them, sleeping on friends' couches and moving in and
out of cheap motels. When Jenny suddenly finds herself on
her own, she is forced to survive with nothing but a few
dollars and her street smarts. The last thing she wants is a
social worker, but when Ellen's and Jenny's lives collide,
little do they know just how much they can help one another. A powerful and emotionally charged tale about motherhood and
justice, Little Mercies is a searing portrait of the tenuous
grasp we have on the things we love the most, and of the
ties that unexpectedly bring us together.
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