Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon

And here's some comments on the latest book that I finished reading this morning -- Debbie Fuller Thomas' Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon. This is one of the books I found for $1 at Mardel's a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for books that looked interesting and this one caught my attention.

The back cover sounded interesting:

Switched at birth -- and then switched back

When Marty Winslow's thirteen-year-old daughter dies of a devastating genetic disease, she discovers the truth--her precious middle child had been switched at birth. After learning that her actual biological daughter was recently orphaned, she decides to fight for custody. Winning the court case was the easy part.

This still-grieving, single mom is torn between memories and realities. And wants desperately for god to heal her family.

For Andie, tall and blonde like Marty, being forced to live with strangers is just one more reason not to trust anyone. Her soul is as beat up as the rundown Blue Moon Drive-In the family owns. But Tuesday night is family night at the Blue Moon. And as Andie's hopes fade, healing comes from the last place she wanted or expected--the hurting family and loving God she fought so hard to resist.

It wasn't until I was looking for the book cover to post that I realized it was a finalist for the 2009 Christy Award in the Contemporary Stand Alone category and for the ACFW Book of the Year. Now that I see that, I do remember the book being a Christy nominee. (Strangely enough, I've just started reading another $1 book that was one of the three Christy nominees in the same category, Lisa Samson's Embrace Me. The category winner, Dogwood by Chris Fabry is on my Amazon wish list.) I can understand why it was nominated for the award.

Though I can understand why it was nominated, I have to be honest. I didn't like it. To me, it was a real downer. Of course, being 13 and finding out your parents weren't your real parents or the daughter you lost to a horrifying disease wasn't your real daughter isn't going to be a theme that's really happy. I get that. It's what Lifetime movies are made of.

I just didn't expect it to be so discouraging for 95% of the book. The chapters alternate between Andie, the daughter, and Marty, the mother, telling the story. Some events overlap to see what happened from both perspectives. You would think in a span of 7 or 8 months that they might possibly have a real conversation to clarify some things.

Marty is too scared of doing anything that will push Andie away. Andie doesn't want to get to close because she's bound and determined she's going back to her grandparents once they sell the mobile home in the retirement community.

The younger and older sisters are on the extremes of trying to get Andie to fit in. And everyone in the family, Andie included, is walking on egg shells all the time. (Relatives on both sides are estranged in a strangely similar way.)

I'm glad I got the book off the $1 shelf. I just wouldn't recommend it myself.

That makes back to back books that I wasn't really crazy about. I have an order coming from Amazon and one from Barnes and Noble. I know that I will like one book in particular, so I'm ready for it to get here. You'll just have to wait to find out which one it is.