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A review by panda_incognito
A Song Called Home by Sara Zarr
4.0
This middle grade novel focuses on a girl who is coping with loss after her mother divorces her alcoholic father and prepares to marry someone else. The book engages with common emotional struggles related to moving, entering a blended family, and grieving a still-living but absent father. The book addresses alcoholism in an incredibly honest, realistic, and moving way. The story drags a lot in the second half, but I am giving the book four stars for the sense of emotional truth that it conveys in all of the ups and downs of the main character's experience.
I also appreciated the religious elements of the book, since it is very rare for contemporary realistic fiction to include characters who experience God and church as central pars of their lives. I wish that the book had resolved some of the spiritual questions that it brought up, since there are good answers for them, but this book can be especially helpful for kids who share the character's church background.
I also appreciated the religious elements of the book, since it is very rare for contemporary realistic fiction to include characters who experience God and church as central pars of their lives. I wish that the book had resolved some of the spiritual questions that it brought up, since there are good answers for them, but this book can be especially helpful for kids who share the character's church background.