Katie Ganshert's The Art of Losing Yourself ~ Reviewed

The Art of Losing Yourself
Katie Ganshert
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press (April 21, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1601425929




Description:




Just like in my dream, I was drowning and nobody even noticed.
Every morning, Carmen Hart pastes on her made-for-TV smile and broadcasts the weather. She’s the Florida panhandle’s favorite meteorologist, married to everyone’s favorite high school football coach. They’re the perfect-looking couple, live in a nice house, and attend church on Sundays. From the outside, she’s a woman who has it all together.  But on the inside, Carmen Hart struggles with doubt. She wonders if she made a mistake when she married her husband. She wonders if God is as powerful as she once believed. Sometimes she wonders if He exists at all. After years of secret losses and empty arms, she’s not so sure anymore.
 
Until Carmen’s sister—seventeen year old runaway, Gracie Fisher—steps in and changes everything. Gracie is caught squatting at a boarded-up motel that belongs to Carmen’s aunt, and their mother is off on another one of her benders, which means Carmen has no other option but to take Gracie in. Is it possible for God to use a broken teenager and an abandoned motel to bring a woman’s faith and marriage back to life? Can two half-sisters make each other whole? 

Review:


I love literary novels. There are few things more satisfying than a beautifully turned phrase, a poignant metaphor, a sense-infused scene that transports a reader far away, or a character that pulls at every emotion. If you agree you need to look into The Art of Losing Yourself and find a place where you can devour and savor this novel.

Told in two parallel 1st person accounts, the story centers around a dying motel, a demented aunt, and two sisters attempting to overcome huge, painful challenges.  Poignant, powerful, rich, raw and infused with faith and hope, this is one of those stories that grabbed my heart. Katie Ganshert's name on the cover is going to guarantee A place on my to read list.

Reviewed by: Kelly Klepfer