(5 / 5)
I wrote this review back last year, before I wrote reviews on every book I read… I wanted to write this so that I could look back and remember why I loved this book so much. Although I don’t know if I will need a reminder. I’m sure it will stay with me.
I won’t delve too much into the synopsis, humans hear music from another planet, send team to investigate, only one survives and returns to tell the tale.
I loved the before and after layout of this book. The author did extremely well to give you only parts of the story and enabled it to come to a riveting and emotional climax that brought it all together. Finally everything becomes clear. Every horrific detail.
The characters in The Sparrow are fantastic. The development of the characters and their relationships were an absolute highlight of the book for me. My favourite character was Ann. Often I re-read the dialogue between her and other characters, letting the depth of her words sink in and resonate with my own thoughts. I found her death (even though you knew it was coming) such a sad shock. (This is not a spoiler, you know only one of them survives right at the start).
Emilio himself was such a multidimensional character. Such a difference between his former self and the broken man that returned to earth. His journey to find God is the glue that holds the story together.
I am not a religious person, yet still found his struggle to be settled in his faith extremely compelling. He had such conflicted feelings towards celibacy and his determination to stay faithful to his beliefs. His apparent loss of faith in the turmoil of the end of his time on the alien planet I found resonated with my own experiences with faith and God.
And when I discovered the source of the music… my heart DROPPED. Everything that seemed so right from the start was now horribly wrong and I felt real pity for Emilio and the humans. All they went through, for this…
Another aspect of this book which I found extremely clever and almost totally realistic was the way in which the humans came into this alien world and in some direct or indirect way, stuffed everything up. Like a comedy of errors.
I was almost put off because the book almost sounded religious, but am so glad I read it. It is not religious at all even though it deals with faith and god. This was absolutely one of my favourite books. I am excited to read the sequel but need a bit more time for this one to sit first.
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