It’s my pleasure to introduce The Language of Sparrows, Rachel Phifer’s debut novel. The daughter of missionaries, Rachel grew up in Malawi, South Africa and Kenya, and attended eleven schools by the time she graduated from high school. She currently lives with her husband and daughters in Houston, where she also blogs about issues of life and faith at RachelPhifer.com. 

About this book: Brilliant and fluent in too many languages to count, 15-year-old Sierra Wright can’t seem to communicate what is important to her in any language. Though April Wright stubbornly keeps an upbeat attitude about her daughter’s future, she has let her own dreams slip away. Just across the bridge lives old Luca, scarred from his time in a Romanian gulag years before. Though he has seemingly given up on people, Sierra is drawn to him despite his prickly edges. No one else is comfortable with the unpredictable old man spending time alone with Sierra, not even Luca’s son. Yet it is this unconventional relationship that will bring two families together to form friendships and unearth their family stories, stories that just might give them all the courage to soar on wings toward a new future.

Genre: Fiction/Christian

Judge this book by its cover? I hate to say it, but I wouldn’t. In my opinion, this book has much more to offer than the cover suggests. For one thing, I don’t really get the city-scape as a reflection of the story’s setting. For another, the story is really April’s, which is not suggested by who (Sierra) is featured on the cover.

Reminds me of… Chasing Lilacs by Carla Stewart

Buy or borrow? Buy

Why did I read this book? For the author, for review.

Would I read another by this author? Yes, please.

My take: I read this novel in its entirety on a flight home from Amsterdam–and how grateful I was for its effortless diversion. Though the story lifts off gradually, it didn’t take me long to get pulled into April’s woes–a widowed mom at her wit’s end with worry over her introspective daughter, Sierra. Though I struggled initially to identify with Sierra, April had my immediate sympathy. My interest further piqued at the first hint of the mystery surrounding Gary, Sierra’s dead father, and grew still more as Nick–Luca’s son and a teacher at Sierra’s school–was introduced as a point-of-view character. By that time, I was completely absorbed in these characters’ lives, eager to discover how the threads of their stories intertwined. And hoping for a little romance. (I wasn’t disappointed.)

Though I’m not a fan of overt spiritual takeaways found in many Christian novels, the gentle wisdom presented within these pages touched me in unexpected ways. I also resonated with the recurring themes of *story.* (“We’re both of us keeping stories from our children. And I wonder if the bitterness we see in them is the result.”) The short chapters kept the story moving forward at a brisk pace, and I found the unexpected depth and unflinching detail both refreshing and unsettling–in a completely good way.

The flight from Amsterdam was long, but in the winsome company of this lovely, insightful novel, it proved a most pleasant one indeed. Recommended!

Thanks to Rachel Phifer for providing me a free copy to review. All opinions are mine.

What are some of the books you’ve read to while away the hours on a long journey? Your recommendations, please. 🙂