“Bartels proves herself a master wordsmith and storyteller.”–Library Journal, starred review
“This subdued tale of learning to forgive is Bartels’s best yet.”–Publishers Weekly
“A deeply personal, thoughtful exploration of dealing with pain and grief.”–Life Is Story
“Taut and engaging.”–Foreword
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Ten years ago, sisters Olivia and Melanie Greene were on a backcountry hiking trip when their parents were in a fatal car accident. Over the years, they grew apart, each coping with the loss in her own way. Olivia plunged herself into law school, work, and a materialist view of the world–what you see is what you get, and that’s all you get. Melanie dropped out of college and developed an online life-coaching business around her cafeteria-style spirituality–a little of this, a little of that, whatever makes you happy.
Now, at Melanie’s insistence (and against Olivia’s better judgment), they are embarking on a hike in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In this remote wilderness they’ll face their deepest fears, question their most dearly held beliefs, and begin to see that perhaps the best way to move forward is the one way they had never considered.
Michigan Notable Book Award winner Erin Bartels draws from personal experience hiking backcountry trails with her sister to bring you a story about the complexities of grief, faith, and sisterhood.
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Summary
From: Rebecca Maney
Book Title: All That We Carried
Book Author: Erin Bartels
What do you like about this book:
"How could Melanie ever hope to have a relationship with someone who allowed no room for mistakes, no room for repentance?"
Hoping to bridge a ten year relational gap following the tragic deaths of their parents, Melanie Greene talks her older sister Olivia into an extended wilderness excursion deep within the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Melanie's casual approach to the trip was perfectly counter-balanced by her sister's excessively detailed itinerary, however neither of them could have predicted how heavy their literal and figurative backpacks would become along the way. What would it feel like to be free?
This book is guaranteed to generate widely varied reactions. Some readers will finish with a deep sense of satisfaction; assured of closure, while others will find the ending confusing, wondering how so many deep spiritual questions could be posed with only brushstrokes of possibilities as answers. Regardless, it's a well written book, especially for those who have struggled mightily with life and death issues, knowing there is only One who holds all the assurances that we need to lay down the burdens of our hearts; the ones that we have tried so clumsily to carry.