WATCH US SHINE

WATCH US SHINE by Marisa de los Santos

Watch Us Shine by Marisa de los Santos is a complicated moving read about much needed healing and forgiveness within a broken family. When Cornelia's elderly mother, Eleanor, is accidentally hit by a car the steady lines of family life are broken. Due to head trauma and not knowing what she is asking for, Eleanor begs for Cornelia to bring her the northern lights. Cornelia cannot understand what her mother is asking for. To her knowledge her mother has never seen the northern lights or even mentioned them in her life before. Cornelia then realizes how very little she knows about her mother's past and her upbringing. She begins to dig and unearths the story of two sisters raised by an abusive mother who suffered from bipolar disorder. They are the light in each other's lives even after each is able to escape and plant themselves into new lives. For a while everything goes well - healing begins and new possibilities unfold into realities. Then life takes a sharp curve as one of the sisters gets herself caught up in a situation that causes heartache and tragedy. While Cornelia is trying to figure all of this out, she is trying to recover from her own tragedy as a mother. A situation occurs with her own children that has left her reeling and questioning her abilities as a mother.

As I close the cover of this one and set it aside I have several thoughts running through my head. I'll start with the negative ones. My first is it took me a little while to get into this book. It was a little slow and I needed to get the threads straightened out between the two ongoing stories and the different characters. Second, I get tired of what I will call box checking! Modern authors/publishers feel the need to throw in social issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the story line. In this case Cornelia has a brother who comes out as gay, and he and his partner are in the process of adopting a child. There are a handful of sentences dedicated to this. They are so minor I find myself asking did we really need to know that? The answer is no. It had absolutely no bearing on the story. Third, the antagonist is an evil church goer. The church has a little idea of what is going on, but they don't step in to do anything about it. This takes up more space than the previous item, but it is still a pimple on the overall size of the story. Fourth, motherhood is a topic that comes up and this book questions the perceived ideas and responsibilities that motherhood brings with it. Now for the positive thoughts. I'm going to lump it together into one continuous overarching theme, and that is the bond of women. In the case of this book that includes sisters, mothers, and friends. And healing. There is life after trauma and this book clearly points that out.

Sometimes after a review like this I get messages asking if I'm recommending it or not. There is a lot of beauty in the story, but there's some storm clouds as well! It's not one I'll likely read again.

HEADS UP- If you haven't read the above paragraphs, do! There are a couple of pockets of language including the F bomb a handful of times. Also, you find out that Cornelia is married to her sister's ex-husband. There was no adultery, but I'll just leave that at it's a unique situation.