Reduced to Tears

     I admit it...I am an emotional person. I inherited an ease of crying from my father.
    What set me off tonight? Writing a little bit in a facebook post about my author friend, Melissa Volker's new book, How the Light Gets In. 
     I was fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to beta read this book for Melissa months in advance of its official launch date. I've beta read for her before, but this book hooked me deep and drew me in from the very first page. Having been a shy, socially awkward, anxious kid who was picked on in school the story resonated with me on multiple deep levels that I didn't think still existed, but they are still there, like dark pools waiting to be agitated by a probing finger.
    I loved how art is used in this book...as an escape. As a connection. As a message. Being an author and an artist, words and pictures have always captured my attention. Melissa's writing is akin to reading a photographic image. Her prose evokes images in the reader's mind, her words, carefully chosen and arranged on the page, create pictures that accompany the story.
    Trying to find the words to scatter rose petals across the cover of this book, to celebrate it's existence in the literary world, to tie balloons to praise and elevate it into its rightful place among literary classics such as The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders, A Separate Peace, Flowers for Algernon, Lord of the Flies...all those novels I read in middle school and high school that still  reverberate in my mind...that is where How the Light Gets In belongs...it's a book that will endure.
     And that is what makes me cry...that someone I personally know has written such a book and still doubts her skill. Melissa! Seriously! Every one of your books that I have read- Delilah of Sunhats and Swans, Hidden, Anabelle Lost, Where We Go, A Life Undone, The Thirteenth Moon, Apocalypse Alice...each has been a beautiful stepping stone leading to this novel.
     And, I firmly believe that there's more yet to come, that despite this triumph, there will be others emerging from your pen.
      I cry because it is amazing to me to know such an exceptional writer, such a talented and gifted author.
      Bravo, Melissa! Bravo!