Brilliant and fluent in too many languages to count, 15-year-old Sierra Wright can’t seem to communicate what is important to her in any language. Though April Wright stubbornly keeps an upbeat attitude about her daughter’s future, she has let her own dreams slip away. Just across the bridge lives old Luca, scarred from his time in a Romanian gulag years before. Though he has seemingly given up on people, Sierra is drawn to him despite his prickly edges.
No one else is comfortable with the unpredictable old man spending time alone with Sierra, not even Luca’s son. Yet it is this unconventional relationship that will bring two families together to form friendships and unearth their family stories, stories that just might give them all the courage to soar on wings toward a new future.
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“With The Language of Sparrows, Rachel Phifer creates an engaging, tender tale of the hope that can arise when painful secrets are brought into the light. Poignant backstory and multifaceted characters draw the reader in and keep the pages turning.”
Amy K. Sorrells, award-winning author of How Sweet the Sound
“This book is a cracker! It is written with such sensitivity; a really beautiful accomplishment. With subtlety, authenticity and a sure hand, Rachel Phifer draws relationships as they truly are, with all their tenderness and all their struggle. Her characters are entirely believable, their crises and hopes portrayed with honesty and compassion. Rachel also walks reverently into the territory of faith, exploring the role of Scripture as a guide and inspiration, and of prayer in shaping what we become. In an area where so many before her have been ham-fisted and two-dimensional, she gets it splendidly, gloriously right. What a brilliant novel.”
Penelope Wilcock, author of The Hawk and the Dove Series
“The Language of Sparrows, by Rachel Phifer, is a beautifully written story of betrayal and an unlikely friendship, forged from understanding. Novel Rocket and I recommend it. It’s a perfect book club selection or an end-of-summer read.”
Ane Mulligan, president of Novel Rocket
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Sexual Content - 1/5
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Violence - 1/5
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Language - 0/5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 1/5
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Summary
The Language of Sparrows is a beautifully written novel of the journey back to wholeness for multiple characters. Rachel Phifer has written a masterful story of lives intertwined, all struggling in different ways to live. But her characters are achingly and frustratingly stuck. April Wright thinks she\'s moved on after her husband\'s suicide, but her cheerful outlook is a mask to cover her belief that she was the one who could have kept her husband from stepping in front of a car after years and years of living in the shadows of depression. On top of that, she is dealing with her daughter Sierra\'s one hundred and eighty degree behavior change--from bright and successful student to depressed and sullen and shut-off. Sierra befriends an odd old gentleman, Luca Prodan, an immigrant from Romania, who happens to be the father of her teacher, Mr. Foster. Through the telling of their stories, that are more pulled out of them at points, these four characters find freedom to love and to live once again. It\'s almost as if each one were holding their breath, and can finally breathe by the end. There are difficult conversations having to do with suicide and and Romanian political prisons. The title The Language of Sparrows to me speaks to the sparrows that are spoken of in the Bible, those for which God cares. The four people are in a sense God\'s sparrows whom He is watching over. Many people see sparrows as unimportant birds, more or less worthless to some people. I think each character saw themselves as unimportant to God. Languages play a large part of this novel; Sierra knows five or six languages which she has taught herself. Mr. Prodan speaks Romanian; she quickly picks that language up as well. Nick Foster spoke Romanian as a child, but has not spoken it with his father (Luca Prodan) for years out of a subconscious desire to punish his father for what he believed to be desertion of him and his mother. It\'s complicated, but aren\'t most relationships. It\'s altogether an excellent read giving insight into the struggle within humanity to love and be loved, and to rest in the truth that God does love them and watch over them.
Voilence: Violence mostly consists of a man's recollection of the torture he experienced in a Romanian prison during the 70s.
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