Thumbs up!

I love heartland

I like starlight because she is very playful and I like when Haley makes a wish on starlight she thinks that the star is just a star, but it is really starlight Marking

I liked how the book ended and it

The characters are complicated and likable. Exploring each character's view of their family unit and their individual feelings provides the reader with a look at the balancing act taking place. Displays of strength and vulnerability are sprinkled throughout the story, thus drawing in the emotions of the empathetic reader. Characters become favorites and then may change as the plot takes some twists and turns. The story is intriguing and ultimately hits some sensitive assessments as the reader follows characters who are dealing with complex family issues. Characters in the novel, as well as the reader, are all experiencing thought provoking questions about how to maneuver sensitive family relationships without destroying one another. This book is a very good read. You won't be sorry.

Interesting read but I found it to be a little obvious and didactic.

I listened to this audiobook recently. In the beginning, it presented such a quirky story - a young woman is convinced by an old friend to become a caretaker to her fiery stepchildren - that I thought about abandoning the book. But the more I listened, the more I was hooked. Kevin Wilson writes so perfectly and in such a familiar tone that you come to believe there might be some combustible children out there. At its core, I think it is a story about family and parenting, and the actions taken by parents to protect and nurture their kids, especially those with special needs. If you can tolerate quirky, I recommend this book.

This was cute. I really like the character’s journeys being both the same and different.

It was a super good book!

I wanted to love this book as science and faith and their intersections are where I "live". But this book plunged into the world of addiction so heavily, that I felt like I needed an Al-Anon meeting while reading it. I don't say that lightly because I highly appreciate 12-step recovery groups. I thought this leaned heavily into the coming-of-age issues of how to disengage from mentally ill parents and restrictive churches. Because it was a look-backwards POV, I thought Gifty, being a Stanford student, would be intelligent enough to seek out other places of worship and come to terms with (while not approve of) the cultural issues in churches. To condemn God because of a few people seems.....unwise and unfair. Do we want God to smite every bad action or actor? Wouldn't that include each one of us? This is the inherent tension in Christianity. How do we continue to love? The attempt for Gifty to discover the answers to depression and addiction seems laudable but naive. How many millions of people have hoped to do just that? Maybe working with God and maybe through 12-step groups could move the needle? Nonetheless,I learned a lot about Ghana, the daily pain of immigration, and the bigotry endemic in AL.