A Gracious Plenty, By Sheri Reynolds

LOVED IT!!

The story is told by Finch. When Finch was little, 4 I think, she was very badly burned—most of her face, her shoulder, and her arm. She’s left with horrible scars, and what you all know will happen, happens: she’s an outcast. Her parents are cemetery caretakers, and the cemetery is basically her front yard. After school, she sticks to home, helping her parents with the caretaking and eventually taking over for them when they pass. When she’s a teenager, Finch discovers something (that I think is WONDERFUL!)—she can hear the Dead. With a little practice, she can see and hear them quite well. Even talk to them! So my favorite parts of the book were reading Reynolds’ idea of the first stage of afterlife. Did you know that the Dead are in charge of pretty much everything? Guess who pushes rivers along! Guess who calls down storms to water the crops and guess who kisses flower buds open! Who greens ivy? Who moves the very air?? Those parts were simply enchanting. For the Dead, when you’re not working, you’re talking. You have to tell your stories. Each story lightens you, until eventually you are nothing—and that’s when you go to the next stage. In the book Finch doesn’t say if there’s a heaven or hell. She just says that they go “up”.

The Dead become her friends. She needs friends, because she’s the town freak. She looks like a monster and she lives in a cemetery—is it wrong that I think that’s funny? She’d be thought odd with just one of those, but with both it’s almost sitcom material.

By the end things have changed. I felt the same sort of sadness as I did at the end of The Graveyard Book—why does it have to end? I know the point of the book is that the character has to grow and change and evolve and blah blah, but why can’t they both learn to live and ALSO still talk to the dead?? Finch learns a lesson, and a few of her kinda sorta enemies learn lessons, and the closest thing she has to a buddy, Leonard, learns a lesson, and everyone lives happily ever after except Finch didn’t even get to say goodbye to her parents. That was the only part I didn’t like.

About Finch: in my opinion, she’s awesome. I like her attitude. I like how she handles young punks who come into her graveyard to litter the place up, and I love how she handles the town busybody—that woman won’t take her vegetables but Finch’ll force her to take her money!