You're My Other Half Of the Sky [#busybloggersbookclub]

This past month I read The Light Between Oceans with the Busy Bloggers Book Club with Allie over at Call Me Sassafras! (And Codi at The Art of Balance!)

I really enjoyed this book! Like Allie, I thought it was difficult to get into. But once I did, I couldn't put it down. I had to know what was going to happen with these families.

Ridiculously simplified synopsis from Shelfari: A childless couple on a lighthouse keep a baby found in a boat washed up on the shore.

Obviously there are consequences to this decision.

I did enjoy the couple falling in love in the beginning, because while it was awkward, I think it reminded me of my awkwardness and if they can fall in love, I probably can too, right?! "You're my other half of the sky." How great is that? I mean it would probably sicken me to hear from anyone who wasn't the right guy, but I totally bought it for this couple.

I dog-eared a bunch of pages that had stuff I liked (I know, sorry!) and a lot of it was the way Stedman described the world on the lighthouse rock. It just seemed kind of magical: "The oceans never stop. They know no beginning or end. The wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island, to make a point which is lost on Tom."

"Existence here is on a scale of giants. Time is in the millions of years; rocks which from a distance look like dice cast against the shore are boulders hundreds of feet wide, licked round by millenia, tumbled onto their sides so that layers become vertical stripes."

Getting too emotionally involved in fiction (book, movie, etc.) is one of my.. Lovable quirks. So if you are anything like me, this book will make you cry. I was practically sobbing for the last 30-40 pages or so. Couldn't even see to read but I had to because I had to finish it! Otherwise I'd have to cry in two sittings? No thank you. I can't say that the ending made me too happy, but with a story like this, there would be no way for a happy ending for everyone involved in the situation.

Overall, I'd say that while it started slow, it did improve, and apart from all the crying, I did enjoy a lot of it. I wish more people in the book had had some common sense! I felt like they constantly thought of only themselves and couldn't really see any other options to their predicament. But anyway!

Some more quotes I liked:

"A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it."
There's some symbolism in that that I just can't think about at the moment. But I'm sure it's there!

The memory of a conversation Hannah has with her husband, where she asks him how, with all the strife he has had in his life, he is always happy. His response: 
"'I choose to,' he said. 'I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.' 
'But it's not that easy.'
He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things....We always have a choice. All of us.'"

"Izz, I've learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you've got to give up hope of ever changing your past."

And one last quote that I hope to remember for my own life:

Join us next month! Head over to Call Me Sassafras to learn more!