Grab Into This River I Drown Narrated By T.J. Klune Viewable As Hardcover
do I love books
I'm taken into other worlds where I can control what goes on, and is often so much better than reality.
They make me smile and sometimes laugh out loud they make me cringe or are downright embarrassing they let my imagination run riot they make me really angry and think 'WTF' or gasp with indignation sometimes I'm breathless with anticipation and can't wait to find out what happens next they make me snigger and chuckle, and if I'm especially lucky a little hot and bothered, woohoo!
Other books make me feel weepy and slightly depressed some are just so unbelievably awful I think OMG what is this rubbish.
. . how did it get printed, other times I'm so happy and upbeat, thinking 'ah bless, what a lovely story', This one was different however this one I just thought Thank you so much TJ for putting into words my own feelings about the death of my father all those years ago.
This book is not for everyoneanyone who has suffered bereavement in their own lives and were talking here about a beloved parent or partner, close family relative or friend NOT a pet, will understand where this book is coming from.
LOTS of other people wont get it at all, but that is their loss!!
There is so much going on in this book the prose is sublime, the words magnificent, there are Angels, there are horrible nasty baddies, there are wonderful townspeople, there are really good friends, there is a strong but somewhat distant mum who eventually starts to get it together and a strong, loving, reliable, honest and wonderfully warm husband and father Big Eddie.
Most of all there is Benji Benjamin Edward Green and there is Cal Calliel, the Blue Angel, sigh,
There are references to some of TJs other books in here as well Seven and Felix from Burn, and of course my lovely Otter and Bear very well disguised, but youll have to have your wits about you to spot them.
Most of all TJ, I want to thank you for sharing the dedication to your father, If Id had the chance, then those words are exactly what I would have chosen to say to my dad,
DNF
I know, I know. What the hell
I just could not deal with Benji's constant depression, I desperately wanted to give him the number of a good psychologist, a large bottle of antidepressants and suggest he take up journaling,
At least I got to use a Big Lebowski gif, The Dude makes everything better, .Stars
"Do you believe in the impossible"
sitelink
Thanks to TJ Klune I do now, Gahh, I hate him sometimes for making me cry so much, . .
Ugh, no, I don't, At least he makes it hurt so good and I'll come back every single time, Promise. Although not my favorite from him, this was another masterpiece about choices and making a difference, And what's love without sacrifice, right It dragged a bit at times, otherwise it would have been another solidstarread from me,
I absolutely loved the narration by Matt Baca, Sadly there are not many audiobooks out there narrated by him, but I will definitely give them a try as well, I bought Into This River I Drown the summer of, but for some reason I waited until now to actually read it, I've opened it many times to dig in, but something would always make me choose a different book, Maybe it was the length it's loooonnng, Maybe it's because I knew that TJ Klune would shred me like no one else
does, Maybe I just wasn't ready,
I'm not a religious person, and I mean at all, I never really have been and I doubt I ever will be, And this book deals heavily in religious mysticism God, angels, divine purpose, sacrifice, etc, Every now and again I will read a book with these themes if it's from an author that I really like and trust, You see, I never want to feel like I'm being preached at, I'm reading romance, not the bible I've read the bible, but that's a story for another time,
I never once felt preached at while reading Into This River I Drown, but I did feel everything, It is in turns heartbreaking and funny, Meaningful and ridiculous. It has TJ Klune's trademark humor and storytelling, It's brilliant. I laughed and cried and sobbed and hurt and loved, That is why I read and TJ Klune delivered so beautifully, I'm going to be thinking about this story for some time to come,
Into This River I Drown is a love story for the ages, Once I heard the white peacock symbolizes the dispersion of souls throughout the world,
The Dalai Lama was once asked what would he do if all his spiritual beliefs were scientifically disproven, He said that if he read all the evidence, all the research, and it was irrefutable, he would have to change,
But
What would you do if something spiritual disproved your scientific beliefs
I have just seen that movie, spiritual and scientific thoughts in a cocktail shaker, which led me to similar movies and then I knew I had read something similar to them.
This is the book I was looking for,
I'm not a religious person but I don't deny anything, If I had some idea of something above us, I don't think it would be in the form of a man with a beard, This book talks about God, magic, spiritualism, parallel worlds, freewill, fate, butterfly effect, keeping a balance with Good and Evil, And Love. And Romance.
Two people in love could have been together in another life, In the Big Bang all atoms were together in a very small space, So it could be said that their atoms love each other since the beginning, But that's not very romantic, Is love really a scientific thing It serves a purpose for the species's procreation and survival, but sometimes it's useless, For instance, when that person you love dies, Is that love useful Is that pain useful
Seems like a waste of energy the individual shouldn't assume,
We cannot go back, That's why it's hard to choose, You have to make the right choice, As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible,
Benji lost his soul mate, his father, And nothing has been right ever since, But then he meets Calliel, And everything has a sense, a purpose, Again. But for how long
Oh, I don't think I'm ever going to answer that in this review, I just want to say that some of those questions, like what we are doing here, why God is so bad when He supposedly loves us, why is the world so unfair, why does the Evil exist.
. . all those questions are considered in this book and I wanted to shout out loud with the characters in all their anger, pain, frustration and sadness, I wanted to stand up and hurt the responsible of it all, the One who makes life so complicated and humiliating, the One who invented Death, Disease and Wrongness just to serve a supposedly higher purpose that we fleshly humans conveniently aren't explained about because we supposedly wouldn't understand.
The author hit all the nails on the head and managed to express into words everything that eats us away completely inside, And as a simple human he answers those questions with the power of his imagination, and his version rang very true to me, It can't be demonstrated that his is the correct response, but it can't be rejected, either, Why not Maybe it's possible after all, Everything is till it's proven the opposite,
Before he was unable to make a choice because he didn't know what would happen, Now that he knows what will happen, he is unable to make a choice,
Okay, this was one of the most emotional reads ever, I'm a girl who loves dark and depressing books, but it has to have a meaning for me, I can't read something that makes no sense, The cover drew me in originally, I thought it was beautiful the first time I saw it, Since then I have been nervous to read it, But as you can see I did read it, and I can tell you hand on heart I loved it!
Benji lost his father when he was.
He drowned in a river and it was deemed an accident, Benji never believed this. He struggles for theyears that follow, His mother and his three aunts try to help, but they fail to help him, He feels lost and alone, He's angry and sad and grieving, We know he feels things that make him wonder, we see a lot and I felt everything, Then he meets Calliel, an angel and his life changes, The moments after Call arrived I was was laughing, It was funny to see Benj's reaction to things,
Cal doesn't remember how he got there, A lot of things he's forgotten are important things, He was there when Benj's father died, but he can't remember why, Everything is a mystery and even worse is the knowledge something bad is going on, Griggs was a cop in the town, He was also the one who said that Benj's dad's death was an accident, From an early stage people are lead to believe he is the bad guy, The mystery in this could be obvious, but the pain was what attracted me to it,
The love that develops between Cal and Benji was beautiful, I was holding out hope for them, In the beginning I wasn't sure if I would feel it, The way it turned out though broke my heart and made me hope, Hope that at the end there would be some sort of happy ending, This romance is not what people would call hot and heavy, it's sweet and loving, It has a lot of emotion and pain, but in the end it's love,
I loved the flashbacks in this, There were a few and even when I wasn't expecting them, they came, Some were so happy that I felt it helped me through the book, It never ruined the emotion, Not once did I lose touch with the emotion of the book, It was like being wrapped in emotion and allowing it to flow until the end, Even the death in this book was beautiful in the end, Because in the end this book made things seem perfect,
I highly recommend this story to fans of romance with a story that goes deeper, If you want to read something easy and that can be forgotten, this won't be the book for you, The pain in this book is real and raw, it can't be just stopped, It runs through the book right until the very end, The way it should be
This is at once the end and the beginning,
This is the story of my love of two men,
One is my father,
The other is a man who fell from the sky,
Highly recommend this beautiful story, It's a must read for me!
Divinely heartwrenching and so full of love,
This book made me run the gamut of emotions from joy, to anger, to disbelief, to faith, to love, to grief, Those and so many more,
Was this book a fantasy In a sense, Magical realism would be a more accurate moniker, specially the first half, What do you call a book filled with dreams that are real, and a guardian angel come down from On High
As always, the prose was absolutely lovely.
Lyrical and descriptive, TJK tells us this story through flashbacks, dreams, and a magical reality that threatens to drown our MC Benji beneath a river of grief,
I kept putting this book off because I didnt want to read about loss and sacrifice, And yes, this book is one of grief, but its one of love, of moving forward, of standing strong,
Its also a book about faith, After all, an angel falls from the sky, I truly enjoyed the debate about God and pain and loss in here, It was done in such a way as to not be pedantic, nor preachy,
Ill be honest, I loved this book, but I love TJK, This isnt sweet and fluffy, it has considerable weight, but its well worth the extra pounds, How often do we get MM Romance that reads like literature,