Genre: Fiction, contemporary
Date of Publication: March 1st 2019
In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.
After losing her mom to cancer and battling it herself, Joanne Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She work non-stop for hours. Then, one day, she was surprised by coming home to find a little girl on her doorsteps, which was quite worrying considering that she (the girl/child) was barefoot and bruised.
She claims her name is Ursa, she’s coming from a galaxy in the Ursa Major constellation, and she won’t go back until she witnesses five miracles. Jo agrees to keep her, but she kept looking regularly on missing children’s websites.
Jo asks her neighbor Gabriel Nash for help to uncover the mystery that is Ursa. But, the longer she spends with them, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?
Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth and final miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.
I Really really LOVED this book!! It’s fantastic and sooo beautiful, I was so overwhelmed with emotions by the end of it.
During reading this book, I felt like I was a part of the story, it was like I was there. I could see myself checking nests with Jo and feeding the kittens at Gabe’s farm…..It was pretty intriguing living along with the characters and how much I imagined the whole world they’re living in even though I’ve never been there, I’ve never even seen it! But, I have a version of it in my mind that’s quite realistic and having done that just through the descriptions given in the book is astonishing!! Things were described in a pretty way that made reading so much funnier!
The characters were well written. We have Jo, who’s one of the main characters, she’s a breast cancer survivor and the different whiffs of details we have along the book helped in building a connection to her (to all the characters to be completely honest), it helped me understand her more. There’s Gabe, or egg man, who’s also one of the main characters, he’s a kind man who runs a farm and takes care of his mom, he suffers from depression and social anxiety….. I won’t say any more things because I’m afraid I’ll spoil it for you. Then, we have Ursa!! She’s a pretty young very very smart girl who claims she’s an alien, she was sent from up in the sky where she lives to earth on a “mission“, she won’t go back unless she sees five miracles; five things that blows her mind.
The other characters were well written as well, they were pretty relatable.
To be honest, the only thing that I thought was not okay; kinda rushed up was how Jo forced Gabe in some situations to do certain things as a way of helping him with his mental health which I find clearly unhelpful. Also, now that I remember, there was another thing that I found weird (I can’t what it is because….Spoiler) but I don’t know, maybe just me?!? It just was….ugh…..
All in all, it was a pretty good read that I would highly recommend!!
librorum in sempiternum 