gina_readsbooks 's review for:

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

5.0

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

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“Someone I loved very much said once to me there is no parallel universe; there is no ‘what could have been if only.’ How I wish there was.”

THIS BOOK. AND IT’S A DEBUT?! Thank you a million times over to Crown Publishing for the gifted copy!

I am in awe of how masterfully this story is told while being epistolary. Sybil’s personality and sass leap from the pages as we see her struggles and interests through her correspondence. She’s in her seventies and facing eventual blindness. All her life she has written letters: to friends, her children, authors, and neighbors. She is thoughtful, well-read, and occasionally, incredibly blunt. I was continually moved by her letters and how she learns to forgive herself. 

Through her correspondence, we learn that there is a painful period in her life that she hasn’t properly reconciled. She’s forced to confront this time head-on, while grappling with her fraught relationship with her daughter. Her children also buy her a DNA kit for Christmas; a gift that she is initially angry over, feeling that her kids want her to look into her adoption. What is so incredible is the way she creates these relationships through correspondence, even with the customer service representative from the DNA company.  

“My life has felt enormous, but what do I have to show for it.”

This is the kind of book where I don’t feel like I have the vocabulary to accurately convert how incredible this story is. I CRIED Y’ALL. The last 30 or so pages were so heart-wrenching and hopeful, and seeing Sybil’s growth, even in her seventies, is exceptional. I don’t know what else to say except please go read this book. All the stars.