Title: Take Care, Sara
Author: Lindy Zart
Date Published: June 6, 2013
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Review: ★★★★★★
(YES, SIX STARS!!!)
You breathe in, you breathe out, and everything you know is gone.
Sara Walker knows firsthand what it feels like to have your reality ripped away, scrambled, and shoved back at you in an undone puzzle where pieces are missing and nothing fits. She's lost so much and is struggling to live and to find the strength to forgive herself for being human. With the help of Lincoln, her husband's brother, Sara realizes it's not about finding who she used to be, but about finding who she is now.
You breathe in, you breathe out, and everything you know isn't gone, but reborn.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
So just WOW. :)
(Breathing in - breathing out - going to start typing my review now)...
Only a few books can make you feel.
I never thought I would come across another book that I would love and would make me feel so, so much intense emotion as The Fault in Our Stars & The Last Hour. Oh boy, I was so wrong!!! Because this book - this emotion-filled-heartbreaking-inspiring-super-amazing book - just had me at first chapter. To say it was beautifully written is an understatement. Because this book is so much more than that. This is one of the few books I'd say that five stars wasn't enough. So for the first time, after almost three years of reviewing books, I'm giving out my first six stars!
It took me a while to make this review because I didn't know where to start or what powerful adjectives can I possibly use to convey how much this novel moved me.
When Sara lost Cole, her husband, her whole world stopped and suddenly there was no more reason to live. Everyday waking up is a difficult task. She became recluse, stopped painting and hang-on to that one-sided phone call which always ends up with the line saying, "Take Care, Sara."
Her journey in trying to begin a new life without her husband is hard especially when she didn't know where to start. But through the help of Mason, the currently-on-vacation-grief-counselor, Spencer and Lincoln, Sara tries to live life again.
Mason. He may be rough on Sara but his attitude proved to be a great help. He may be sticking his nose into places he's not wanted, but he means well. He and Sara suffered the same type of grief and knew almost exactly how she felt. So besides the constant bossing around and enigmatic hints, Mason never did really push Sara into talking to him. He allowed her to take her time with her grief and guided her with the process.
Lincoln.
Oh my gahd! He's my new book boyfriend. He's patient, persistent, determined, persuasive, sweet, generous, loyal and he loves deeply. *swoon*
A part of him was lost when he lost his brother, Cole. But he too has secrets, secrets he could no longer contain the more time he spends with Sara. Question is: will she be able to see through him? Yay, I could no longer type without spilling out any spoilers for future readers. Nevertheless -
Take Care, Sara is a beautiful novel about loss, coping, moving on and finally letting go. It's a story about finding love, losing love and once again embracing the emotion when you least expect it.
Ms. Lindy allowed her readers to be with Sara in her journey. You could actually feel the emotions pouring out in every page. You are one with the characters as they develop and evolve as the story goes. The ride may be painful, and yes you may end up crying your eyes out (like I did), but the reward at the end is totally worth every tears and heartache.
Take Care, Sara is definitely an inspiration, a page-turner, a tearjerker and a book with a spot on my favorite list. This is a book I would recommend to all my friends, to people who have lost someone they love and needed a strength to move on.
Take Care, Sara is achingly beautiful, intense and emotional that readers will not only love but will take inspiration from.
“You’ll never heal if you don’t face what hurts you.”
“That’s the thing about ‘what ifs’; they don’t matter. They don’t change anything. All they do is make it unable for you to heal.”
“No one could control the length of their life, but they could control how they lived it.”
“She had realized something over the recent months: it didn’t matter who you were or what you’d accomplished in life; none of that mattered when tragedy struck. You had no pull; no power. You had no choice. There was nothing to gamble with; nothing to do to put the odds in your favor. You were there and then you were gone, leaving those around you to realize how insignificant they all really were; leaving them to try to pick up the destroyed pieces.”
“You hold on tight from now on, so tight it hurts. Got it? Don’t let go of me, not ever. Don’t worry about hurting me, don’t worry about suffocating me, don’t worry about holding on too tight. You hold on and you never let go. You’ll only hurt me, I’ll only suffocate, if you let go. Promise.”
“You didn’t die. You’re not dying. You don’t get to die, Sara,” he ground out. “Start living.”
“I’m messy and a slob and I like beer a little too much. I work long hours and I like to be outside more than inside. I’m restless and reckless, and yes, I admit, a pervert. Upon occasion. But I love you. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you, Sara. Never will. I want to be with you until I take my last breath, and even when I take my last breath, I want it to be next to you. Please. Redeem my selfish soul and make it better, make me better. Say you’ll be my wife.”
“When you want something so bad, when you deny yourself it, day after day, for so long, after a while, you ask yourself why you’re even doing it. You hope it will fade and die; you hope your secrets won’t be revealed, because it wouldn’t just kill you if they were, but it would kill other people as well. So you forsake yourself for the greater good, but sometimes, most times, it’s too much of a burden, Sara. Do you know what I’m saying?”
They looked nothing alike. Lincoln Walker was bigger, taller, with gray eyes and darker hair. But when Sara looked at him, she saw his brother. It was in the perpetually lowered eyebrows, the square jaw, and the stance. Lincoln was the moodier, easier to anger, brother; her husband the more amiable, if slightly wild, brother. Nothing alike in personalities or looks and yet she saw her husband in Lincoln. Maybe because she wanted to.
“What are you doing, Sara?” he demanded.
“I’m—what are you doing?” she shot back.
“You look guilty.” Lincoln strode for her, not stopping until he was inches from her and looming over her.
Sara had to crane her neck back to meet his eyes, and when she did, she saw they were red-rimmed and bloodshot. She took in the dark stubble of his jaw and the unkempt, shaggy hair he used to always keep short. She’d never noticed before how it waved up around his ears on the nape of his neck. Brackets had taken a place around his mouth and he seemed thinner than she remembered. It was wearing on him too.
“You can’t just barge into my house, Lincoln.” Sara backed up a step and Lincoln followed.
He had on a gray hooded sweatshirt and faded jeans and brought the citrus and mint scent of soap and toothpaste with him. It was all wrong. Wrong man, wrong scent, wrong everything.
“Yeah, I can, ‘cause technically, it’s my brother’s house too. You look like shit. When’s the last time you showered or ate a decent meal?”
Lincoln had always been blunt, something Sara had admired. Now, though, she really wished he wasn’t quite so blunt. This was why she had been avoiding him as much as she could. Because she knew he’d do this. He thought he had to look out for her, he thought it was his responsibility to take care of her for his brother. On the phone he could talk to her and not expect anything, because he knew he wouldn’t get anything; not even a response, but in person, Lincoln agitated and pushed her and made demands; he always had. They’d used to argue as a form of communication, something that had forever irritated her husband.
“You’re one to talk. You don’t look much better.”
He opened his mouth, and then closed it. “What happened on the phone? You were there and then you weren’t.” Lincoln’s eyes went to the floor and he leaned down to pick up the beeping phone. He turned it off and resituated it on the wall before narrowing his flint-colored eyes on her. “I miss him too, Sara, but at least I work. At least I try to be normal. I don’t hide in my house and push everyone away. You lost your husband, but I lost my brother.”
3 signed print copies of Take Care, Sara for US residents
and
2 ebook copies of Take Care, Sara
Lindy Zart
Lindy Zart has been writing since she was a child. Luckily for readers, her writing has improved since then. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two sons, and one cat. Lindy loves hearing from people who enjoy her work.
is provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
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