{Synopsis} –When Colin Leventhal leaned out his bedroom window on the night of May 12th and said goodbye to his girlfriend, he never expected it would be forever. But when Sarah Evans goes missing that night, Colin's world unravels as he transforms from the boyfriend next door to the main police suspect. Then one year later, at her memorial service, Colin makes a phone call that changes everything. Is it possible that Sarah is still alive? And if so how can he bring her back?
As Colin struggles with this possibility, across the street, Sarah’s little sister, Claire learns how to navigate the strange new landscape of life without her sister. While her parents fall apart, Claire remains determined to keep going even if it kills her.
THIS IS SARAH serves as a meditation on loss, love and what it means to say goodbye.
{My Thoughts} – Colin Leventhal was very much in love with Sarah Evans. On the day she disappeared he lost his mind. His world collapsed, he lost his will to live, he lost his ability to care and he was crumbling from the inside out. He kept holding onto the thought that maybe just maybe Sarah was still out there and that he had to be the one to save her. He spent countless days calling her phone hoping she would answer and then one day her voicemail had managed to pick up this was one year after she’d gone missing. He kept calling her after that leaving her messages hoping that she would call back but she didn’t and he kept holding onto hope, hope that she was out there, hope that he just needed to find her, hope that in a sense she was alive.
Claire Evans was a Sarah’s younger sister. She had always wished that she had what Sarah had including Colin. Claire learns how hard it is to live through the loss of her sister and in her own way she wanted to help Colin. She had always loved Colin and wanted him to be okay. She did a lot of not smart things throughout the book that could get her in a lot of trouble but in the end she didn’t have anything to do with her sister going missing.
The two of them struggle with accepting that Sarah isn’t coming back and it isn’t until the end of the book that for both of them they are finally able to let go. They can finally let Sarah go and start living their lives for themselves instead of everybody else. Well Colin wasn’t living for everyone else he was stuck in this world where Sarah was alive in his head and as long as she was there everything was okay because he didn’t have to let go. Claire was the one living for everyone else and because of that things were not well for her. Her mother left, her father wanted to pack up and move away, the uncertainty of not knowing what happened to Sarah is what was tearing the family apart. Because of all that uncertainty no one knew how to deal with what was all taking place. No one knew really how to heal or accept it all and because of all that it made it difficult to move on.
This book is a wonderfully well written book. It’s tone is perfect and it does have it’s moments where it may make you tear up or even cry. It is a good book for anyone to read that had been forced to deal with the loss of a loved one. The loss of someone that you have no answers for because they are simply gone and aren’t coming back. There are so many more things that could have been covered in this book in regards to this topic, but the things that were covered helped to make a good book. The most important thing I got out of reading this book is that you need to accept what is going on before you can move on and heal. Acceptance is that last part of the healing process and getting there can sometimes be an overwhelming and bumpy road. This book can help other’s to know that they are not alone and that others too have been through what they are going through, it can maybe help others to learn to live their lives again.
{Quotes i liked} –
01} “I’m eighteen, about to graduate, and, in a few months, I’m suppose to go to college and pretend that everything is okay. I can’t wrap my brain around that. Nothing is okay. It hasn’t been the same since the last time I saw Sarah. That was when time cracked, splintered like a broken bone, and no matter how hard I try to hold it together, everything falls apart. -Colin
02} In a single moment, Sarah vanished, and the world shifter forever on its axis. It can do that. It can keep going on for everyone else, spinning around, day in day out: morning, school, home, bed, morning, school, home, bed, lather, rinse, repeat. It goes on for everyone else, but then for some of us, like me, it comes to a screeching halt. -Colin
03} I used to be jealous of how Sarah was, but now I felt guilty for even thinking such a thing. All the complex emotions vanished when Sarah disappeared. I only wanted one thing- to get her back, to get our life back to normal. – Claire
04} Sometimes I wondered if every time I came in this room, I made it a little less Sarah’s. Like my being here pushed her out. I didn’t want to push her out; I just wanted to bring her back. – Claire
05} High School wasn’t the kind of thing you just float through. It was a jungle, something my parents didn’t understand. – Claire
06} It’s so easy to be unnoticeable. It’s actually comforting, like floating downstream. I didn’t have to make any decisions because the current would just carry me wherever it needed.It felt peaceful the way one day passed into the next, seamless like the overlapping petals of a flower. – Colin
Final Conclusion: 5 Star Rating.
