Julie Cantrell's Int the Free ~ Reviewed

Into the Free: A Novel [Paperback]  

Julie Cantrell  

Paperback: 368 pages

• Publisher: David C. Cook (February 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078140424X

Description:

Just a girl. The only one strong enough to break the cycle.

In Depression-era Mississippi, Millie Reynolds longs to escape the madness that marks her world. With an abusive father and a "nothing mama," she struggles to find a place where she really belongs.

For answers, Millie turns to the Gypsies who caravan through town each spring. The travelers lead Millie to a key that unlocks generations of shocking family secrets. When tragedy strikes, the mysterious contents of the box give Millie the tools she needs to break her family's longstanding cycle of madness and abuse.

Through it all, Millie experiences the thrill of first love while fighting to trust the God she believes has abandoned her. With the power of forgiveness, can Millie finally make her way into the free?
 

Saturated in Southern ambiance and written in the vein of other Southern literary bestsellers like The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, Julie Cantrell has created in Into the Free—now a New York Times Best Seller—a story that will sweep you away long after the novel ends.

 

 

Saturated in Southern ambiance and written in the vein of other Southern literary bestsellers like The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, Julie Cantrell has created in Into the Free—now a New York Times Best Seller—a story that will sweep you away long after the novel ends.

Saturated in Southern ambiance and written in the vein of other Southern literary bestsellers like The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, Julie Cantrell has created in Into the Free—now a New York Times Best Seller—a story that will sweep you away long after the novel ends.  Review:

Review: 

Into the Free is about a young girl named Millie Reynolds, growing up in Mississippi during the Depression.  She has had an unhappy childhood, dealing with an abusive father, and a mother who retreats into her world most of the time, leaving Millie to take care of the both of them.  The spring of her 16^th year, the band of gypsies she’s been following for the past few years shows up, along with the young man, River, with whom she has fallen in love.  They spend lots of time together, and she plans to run off them, but before she can, her father shows up and nearly beats her mother to death.  She feels obligated to stay with her mother and River leaves.  However, one of the old Gypsy ladies lead Millie to a box buried long ago that reveals many of the family secrets Millie has been searching for.  Millie then struggles to discover all of these secrets, along with figuring out where she belongs.                  
I had trouble getting into this book.  It got easier about a third of the way through, but I was disappointed in that at the end of the book, Millie doesn’t seem to have a clear understanding about the Lord and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for her sins.  She is able to get out of despair and break the family pattern, but the writer didn’t make anything clear in regards to a presentation of the gospel.  She talks about Millie’s feeling the presence of God, but for me, the gospel wasn’t clear at all.  It was an okay book.  It just depends on what you’re looking for in a story, I suppose.

Reviewed by: Sarah  Meyers