12/14/2024
I Made It Out of Clay by Beth Kander
First of all, did a terrific job voicing this story. As it turns out, a little TOO terrific for my own personal reading, because the story is written from the perspective from inside Eve's head, Eve's head is a really sad and messed up place to be for the first half of the story, and the narration was so good that I was a little too THERE to be comfortable.
That Eve lived where I used to live in Chicago, went to shul in the town where I used to work, lost her dad in pretty much the same way I did at about the same time in our lives, AND had very similar relationships with her parents as I did with mine made the story hit more than a little too close to home for me and your reading mileage will undoubtedly vary in this regard.
Also, this isn't remotely a rom-com, which the blurb sorta/kinda leads the reader to expect.
Instead, it's a story about surviving grief, getting through one step at a time even if its while wallowing and eating your feelings. It's a harder story in a lot of ways than that blurb might lead you too expect. At least until the halfway point, when Eve takes tradition and mythology and puts them into real 21st century practice and the whole story goes somewhere that is over-the-top into unexpected and things get wild, crazy and just a bit dark until Eve works her way around to the happy ending she's opened herself up enough to deserve.
