Fly Away

As promised, when the sequel to Firefly Lane came out, I promptly purchased it and got down to business reading it on my Kindle (thanks again hubs for the great gift).

I finished it this morning, during baby boy's second nap of the day (he's on his third nap right now; it's awesome). I really liked it. It wasn't quite as good as Firefly Lane, but Fly Away was better than most sequels ever are and like so many of the review say, it really could stand alone.

The book picks up right where the first one leaves off, after the death of one of the main characters. It's the story of how the other characters do, or in a lot of cases don't, cope with the death. One sentence that really stuck out to me, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that there are support groups and books for dealing with the loss of a spouse, parent or child but never for dealing with the loss of a best friend. So true. Fortunately I've never had to cross that bridge but I certainly can see it as a void in the "acceptable grieving" list.

One of the characters, Cloud, who was more or less a background character in the first book, is more center stage in this one. As such your opinion of her softens and you even sympathize with here where in the first book you scorned her. I like how the author transformed our attitude toward her.

Long story short, it was a good read. And though it can stand alone, the first one was so good, it shouldn't. Read them both.