A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard

I am so pleased to say "I am staying on track with my alphabet challenge!" Gosh it is not as easy as it looks! I have set a schedule in my calendar to make sure I am completing and starting a new book every two weeks; so far, I am nailing it! I only say it's hard due to the fact that I am still working full time, and I am reading other challenges at the same time. But I got this!

Choosing which book to read next from my challenge was easy as we turned over into February, and February is the month of love. My favourite genres are thrillers and historical fiction, so "A Quiet Kind of Thunder" was an easy pick due to the fact that I have so few romance books to choose from.

I am not a romance lover by any means, but Barnard blew me away. I think "A Quiet Kind of Thunder" is one of the most sweetest, beautiful books I have ever read; and I don't say that lightly.  It was a coming of age story about a first love between a deaf boy and a selective mute girl. It was heartwarming, and incredibly humorous at times, and simply adorable. Barnard captured young adult life so perfectly. Barnard created real everyday relationships that intertwined with the teens...parents, step-parents,  siblings and friends, that made the story so much more believable. Barnard captured the struggles of living with disabilities perfectly; I know this as my daughter has ASD/GAD and I PTSD, so I have experienced them first hand. Barnard depicted the difficulties of trying to fit into a world that isn't disabled. Living with a disability has a profound effect on the way one interacts with the world. Barnard dove into how these disabilities affected the relationships around them, their parents marriages and their friendships. This depth made the story feel even more real. If I hadn't been so busy this month, I would have stayed up all night to binge read this one.

Near the end of the book, I turned the page to realize it was the last sentence, and I actually started to cry. "No, this can't be the end!" I didn't want to leave them. The love between them was so tangible, so sincere. Barnard captured first true love perfectly, or at least the way everyone dreams their first true love to be. Thank you Barnard, for sweeping this non-romance reader completely off her feet!