“Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That’s what all the Returned were.”  

Harold and Lucille Hargrave’s lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they’ve settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time…. Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old. 
All over the world people’s loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it’s a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he’s their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human. 

Jason Mott

With spare, elegant prose and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and responsibility. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction.

My Thoughts:

Before I’d read a word of this book I was excited by the premise. People returning from the dead? Crazy, right? Now, zombies and such aren’t my usual bookish milieu, to put it mildly. But this? This was a whole different kind of tale.

I thought this was such a beautifully sad story. It broke and warmed my heart in equal measure. There were times I was angry. There were times I wanted to weep. 

Most importantly, this book made me think. I couldn’t help but wonder about what the world would be like if these events actually happened. On a personal level I couldn’t stop thinking about who I would want to come back, if only for one more day. I’ve been chewing on these questions ever since.

Jason Mott shows just how marvelously complicated and fragile human beings really are. The Returned isn’t a book I’ll soon forget.

For more thoughts (and a different opinion) on The Returned please see this review from Monika at A Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall.

 

Oh Captcha, you are a conversation killing, eye straining, twisted device of the devil! Do I feel strongly about this? Yep.

I love to comment on blogs. For me, blogging is all about the connection with the book community. It’s hard to make those connections when the commenting process is hampered by the indecipherable mumbo-jumbo that is Captcha. The eye injuries, the time sucking…no thanks!

Phoebe disapproves. Strongly.

Thankfully, I’m not alone. Allison from The Book Wheel feels the same way. After much discussion in the Twitterverse, we have decided to create the CAPTCHA CHALLENGE! The challenge is three-fold.

• Check your own blog for Captcha.

  • We have found that many people have it and don’t even realize it. To see if you have it enabled on your site, log out of your blog account and leave yourself a test comment (you can always delete it later).

• Disable Captcha

• Allison’s favorite alternative to Captcha is the social login (WordPress)- it gets rid of anonymous comments, lets people link their Twitter handles, and gets rid of the dreaded word and number combo.
• Jennifer uses Blogger. While the commenting system isn’t the best she’s found that by disabling anonymous comments the spam disappears. (You can also set up comment moderation if you’d like to take it up a notch.)

• Spread the word!

  • Grab our logo for your own post and/or grab the button! You can link up on Allison’s blog HERE!