The Way We Bared Our Souls
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
If you could trade your biggest burden for someone else’s, would you do it?
Five teenagers sit around a bonfire in the middle of the New Mexico desert. They don’t know it yet, but they are about to make the biggest sacrifice of their lives.
Lo has a family history of MS, and is starting to come down with all the symptoms.
Thomas, a former child soldier from Liberia, is plagued by traumatic memories of his war-torn past.
Kaya would do anything to feel physical pain, but a rare condition called CIP keeps her numb.
Ellen can’t remember who she was before she started doing drugs.
Kit lost his girlfriend in a car accident and now he just can’t shake his newfound fear of death.
When they trade totems as a symbol of shedding and adopting one another’s sorrows, they think it’s only an exercise.
But in the morning, they wake to find their burdens gone…and replaced with someone else’s.
As the reality of the ritual unfolds, this unlikely group of five embarks on a week of beautiful, terrifying experiences that all culminate in one perfect truth: In the end, your soul is stronger than your burdens.
"Utterly original, haunting, and honest, Strayhorn's literally infectious story of fear and hope will change the way you view your flaws forever." --Una LaMarche, critically acclaimed author of Like No Other and Five Summers
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Strayhorn's debut, high school junior Consuelo "Lo" McDonough is beginning to show symptoms of multiple sclerosis something that terrifies her, since the disease recently took the life of her aunt. After a mysterious stranger with a coyote offers to take Lo on a healing journey, she sets out to gather four other suffering companions to participate in the ritual with her. The four classmates she enlists are either virtual strangers or abandoned former friends party girl Ellen, dependent on increasingly dangerous drugs; Kaya, who cannot feel physical pain due to a rare neurological condition; Thomas, a former child soldier from Liberia with a bloody past; and Kit, who is mired in mourning for his dead girlfriend. In the deserts outside Santa Fe, the five magically swap their respective burdens, leading to revelations, fresh perspectives, and tragedy. Rather than deal with one momentous challenge in depth, Strayhorn's efforts to do justice to five of them results in superficial treatments all around. Similarly, the vague mysticism in which she wraps the characters' journey feels spiritually thin. Ages 12 up.
