Download A Song For Issy Bradley Constructed By Carys Bray Provided As EPub

can't review the book, . . I can't do it justice, Just found it heartbreaking and beautiful, .Stars

A stroy about a mormon family and their struggles with life and faith, We read about a broken family hoping for miracles so they can carry on when their world falls apart,

I think perhaps my expectations were too high when I began reading this novel, And while I didn't dislike it, it just didn't float my boat either,
I enjoy reading about different religions and am always interested to learn something new, However I didn't connect with any of the characters in this novel, Half ways through the book I found that I couldnt name the characters before I opened the book one evening or put faces to them and for me this was a real problem and therefore this the main reason I didn't love the story.

I wasn't emotionally invested in the story as others readers seem to have been and I really didn't find it a page turner,
I did however enjoy reading details and facts about the Mormon faith,

This will probably make a wonderful movie but as a novel its not one for my favorite shelf,
I know so very little about the Mormon faith, so that was my motivation for reading this book,
What I found inside was a wonderful surprise, A family sorely tested after a tragedy, a family that was so invested in their faith and now found themselves struggling to align their faith with what had happened.


The story is told in alternating chapters by the five family members, Clare, the mother, Ian the father and Bishop of their church, Zippy a young girl struggling to find her place, Alma, a young boy who only wishes to play football, and little Jacob, whose staunch belief in the church's teaching leads to some very humorous yet poignant moments.
Jacob, quickly won my heart as did all the children, The author has such empathy for her characters and this shines through in the telling of each of their stories,

It would be easy to cast Ian as the villain because his actions sent mixed messages to the children, He was so invested in his faith he often reacted in ways I found strange and very unsympathetic, I think he did try to the best of his ability because really that was all he could do, Clare was not raised in the church, she converted for Ian upon their marriage, This was an emotional and raw telling of the face of profound grief, How it is different for everyone, that there is no time limit and no wrong or right way to grieve, A family in crisis just doing the best they can, A wonderful mixing of the tenants of a faith and the doubts that can prevail,

A beautifully written book with many unfolding layers, A book thaw may not be for everyone especially those who are grieving themselves, Yet, this book had a huge impact on me, one I will not soon forget,

ARC from librarything, I could feel pieces of my heart crumbling off while I read this, A story about reanalyzing faith after a tragedy, and about how family members often live in vastly different worlds even as they sit at the same dinner table every night.
I loved being in the heads of all the Bradleys especially the youngest son, Jacob, and I'll miss spending time with them, A beautiful book. Something is missing in this novel, It has some very interesting themes, but it never goes deep enough into any of them, Age old questions of faith why do bad things happen to selfproclaimed good people, for example, are never dealt with philosophically or practically, Even though dramatic and tragic things happen in this novel, it does not have the emotional power it should, Instead, it feels sometimes like a young adult novel, as many have already commented, or as a soapy tearjerker, No one really goes all the way lose their faith, confront each other's choices or changes their lives following the events in the book, Almost no one learns anything, How is that possible I enjoyed reading this novel it is a fast and easy read, but has no added value,.

I found this book almost unbearably sad, it's about a family tragedy, and how it affects the different members of that family,
It's also about the Mormon faith, something I knew very little about, so from this point of view, it was something of an education.

There are some very well drawn characters, one who made me angry, and some who broke my heart, and actually made me cry,
Not a favourite book, but one I'm glad to have read, even though its theme made reading it quite difficult at times,
הספר הזה ריסק לי את הלב. לא קראתי ספוילרים לפני שניגשתי אליו, ואולי בשל כך צלחתי את לב ליבו תוך שאני ממררת בבכי. משפחת ברדלי נכנסה לי ללב. אם המשפחה נגעה ללבי מאד, ואילו אבי המשפחה עורר בי זעם ובוז. דווקא לקראת הסוף ניכר בו שיפור, אך הוא עדיין אדם נוראי בעיניי. אהבתי את דמותו של ג'ייקוב, למרות שהתנהגותו ותפיסת עולמו לאורך רוב הספר תואמת את גילו של בן ארבע הרבה יותר מבן שבע. אהבתי גם את התהליך וההתפכחות שעוברים בני המשפחה, כל אחד בדרכו, והייתי שמחה לקרוא את המשך עלילותיהם של בני משפחת ברדלי לאחר נקודת השיא החותמת את הספר.
מומלץ בחום. I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads, Thanks!

Guhhh. I really honestly don't know how I felt about this one, I wish it was a bookclub read because I'd love to discuss it, It feels weird to tag this as Christian fiction, because it's actually Mormon fiction, and while Mormons are Christians as far as I can tell they have their own brand of religious whatnot going on.
For a while I was wondering if the author was trying to show us how selfish and onesided this kind of life can be, or if she was just sort of promoting it without realizing that she was painting her characters to seem like jerks to the rest of us.
I should have trusted her more the "about the author" page says she left the Mormon church quite some time ago, Well, okay then.

Recently I was talking with a friend, who happens to be an author and the daughter of a pastor, about this book, I talked about how selfish the Bishop and father of four children seemed in the book, how quickly he was willing to cast aside the needs of his wife and children to serve what he perceived to be the higher needs of his church and congregation, and how frustrating of a character he was.
My friend said this is the

struggle of all children of clergy, no matter if they are Mormon or not: there is always a battle to choose the people you love most over the people you are called to serve.
To those of us who have never felt such a calling, Bishop Ian and his ilk seem like colossal jerks, using God as an excuse for everything.
But to Ian, it is all very logical and makes perfect sense, No matter what happens, it was God's plan,

There's also lots and lots of misogyny in this book, although the church paints it up as modesty, chastity, the woman's proper place in the home, etc.
There's a scene with Zipporah that broke my heart because I don't think she'll ever stop blaming herself for something that wasn't her fault, There's also an incredibly disturbing scene that really tiptoes along the edge of being rape, The man in question seems to know this but continues on anyway, which made me a bit sick to my stomach,

Okay, so anyway, the same friend from above recently defined literary fiction as a story in which everyone is still upset at the end.
This book fits that description perfectly, The ending is hopeful, but not what I would call happy, The dad is still obtuse, the mom is still a wreck, and the kids are still teetering in the verge of losing their faith, I have high hopes that everything will turn out okay, but I'm still really worried about all of these characters, They have long and difficult roads ahead of them,

A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray is a very highly recommended novel about a family experiencing a tragic death and how they all handle the aftermath.


The Bradleys are an LDS Mormon family living in the UK, Parents Ian and Claire have four children: daughter Zippy is sixteen, son Al is fourteen, son Jacob is seven, and the youngest daughter is Issy.
A Song for Issy Bradley opens on the morning of Jacob's seventh birthday, Claire is trying to get things ready for his party and has been promised help by Ian, but Ian is serving as a bishop for their church and rushes off to help one of the many needy church members who calls, leaving Claire to manage the shopping and the party alone.
Issy has stayed in bed because she doesn't feel well, so Claire gives her something for her fever and tries to get everything ready for the party, hoping Issy will sleep and feel better afterwards.
After the party, Ian is still gone and Issy is not up, Claire immediately realizes that something is wrong and they call for an ambulance, Issy is hospitalized, but dies from meningitis,

Each member of the Bradley family tells their story and what they are thinking and experiencing during this picture of their lives during an especially trying and emotional time of their lives.
Claire falls into a deep depression, sleeps in Issy's bed and neglects the rest of her family, Ian is like a cheerleader for the LDS church, He knows that there is something wrong but will not get Claire help, even as Zippy asks him to, because it's not what "we"do.
Zippy is a teen girl dealing with her first crush, and guilt over the way her church handles any petting it's always the girl's fault.
Al just wants to play football, something his father is trying to prohibit, Jacob thinks if he has enough faith and prays right he can bring Issy back to life, And Ian just keeps following along with the LDS role of bishop, always going if anyone calls him, neglecting his family who really need him.


I simply can't say enough good things about A Song for Issy Bradley, The writing is stunning, superb, superlative, The character development is outstanding, It's hard to believe that this is Bray's debut novel it is that good, Now, the subject matter is hard, . . so hard. Parts of this novel will anger you, and with good reason: a child dies a woman falls into a black hole of depression a father tries to ignore it and hides the truth from people so no one will think there is anything wrong a teenage girl is made to feel guilty and that petting with a young man is her fault, according to what her LDS church teaches a young man is prohibited from pursuing his passion for football and doubts his faith a young boy thinks he can pray his sister back to life.


But even as you are indignant and brokenhearted over the abuse/misuse of faith, the family is presented with real empathy and compassion.
Claire's questioning of her faith and falling into a depression is very easy to comprehend after the death of her child, Ian's reactions are harder for me to accept, His eagerness to please all the church members and put their needs and desires first while allowing his own family to suffer is unintelligible, Zippy is a great character and the guilt that she is burdened down with in the name of religion is awful,

Carys Bray grew up in the Mormon church, so she knows her subject matter and infuses every bit of A Song for Issy Bradley with very realistic details of the daily life of an LDS family.
The questioning of their beliefs and how women are treated/viewed are based on real facts and the inside knowledge lends an authenticity to the novel that is hard to ignore.


One of the best books I've read this year!

One quote took my breath away since I intimately know and have experienced this feeling when my sister passed away:
"Zippy stared at Issys face she didnt look peaceful and she didnt look asleep.
She looked like a badly made model of herself, empty of all her Issyness, She looked really dead. "

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House via Netgalley for review purposes, This was such a wonderful, wonderful book, It is the story of a the Bradleys, a Mormon family whose lives are suddenly shattered by an unthinkable tragedy, It is the story of how each of them comes to terms with the loss of one of their own while seeking his or her own place within their Mormon faith and in the wider world.
The characters in this book are authentic and endearing, imperfect and human, The writing is beautiful and engaging, I feel fortunate to have received this book for free through the Goodreads First Reads program, as it certainly would have been well worth paying for.
I absolutely loved it. I really loved this family story of grief and faith, I hope to come back to a full review later, I gave this book three because the story was so compelling, But I don't recall ever reading a book where the characters were so one dimensional, They are all members of the Church, but it focuses on all the hard things about being a Mormon and not at all on the joys.
I read my scriptures almost every day, but I don't spout scriptures in every conversation or even have them going through my head in a running commentary like the characters in this story.
There was no room for repentance and feeling that joy or for even having a feeling or thought contrary to what the Church teaches, I understand the experiences the characters went through, particularly Zippy, because I remember getting those same lessons about morality and sex as I was growing up.
They are not effective and I have taken a different approach with my kids, I just feel like members of the Church were portrayed as not open to anything except what they learn in church and there is no room for independent thought, and that is just not true.
I thought the writing was great and the story was a good story but the portrayal of the characters reflects what the author thinks of the Church and its teachings and she does not have a positive view of it.
. Where I grew up, in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D, C. , any trip on the Beltway had us pass the Mormon Temple in Kensington, This giant structure, gleaming white and gold and topped by an eighteenfoot statue of the angel Moroni, is visible for miles around, I remember being intrigued by it, wondering how it differed from our own Protestant church and what might happen there,

Carys Bray can offer a genuine insiders view: she was raised a devout Mormon but left the faith in her early thirties when, a wife and mother of four, she realized she could not rationalize their beliefs to her children.
There is certainly an autobiographical element to her debut, in which the death of a daughter casts a pious Mormon family into the depths of grief and doubt Brays second child, Libby, died at a few days old of an undiagnosed genetic condition.


The novel shifts masterfully between the close thirdperson perspectives of each member of the family, Sevenyearold Jacobs viewpoint is pricelessly simple: He “knows that his faith is bigger than a mustard seed its as least as big as a toffee bonbon, maybe bigger.
”

This is a touching and necessary story about the difference faith can and cannot make positing the little resurrections to be found in the midst of despair.


Full review in Februaryissue of Third Way magazine, .