Search - The Sound of Us

Alice Marlowe is realizing, at the age of 48, that there's more to life than having a comfortable home, a fulfilling career, and parents and friends that love her. When she's awakened in the middle of the night by a wrong number, Alice 's world is tilted on its axis--and the tilting may very well save her sanity.

A little girl, barely six years old, has called Alice by mistake, missing a phone number by a couple of digits. Larissa, the girl on the other end of the line, is looking for her Auntie Teya--and her mother. As Alice struggles to awake from her deep sleep, she realizes that this child is at home alone, with no one to feed her, bathe her, clothe her, or watch out for her. Doing something she's never before done in all of her life--take the iniative to do something impulsive--Alice ends up leaving the comfort of her home and going to Larissa's apartment, ostensibly to wait for the child's mother to return.

What follows is an emotional rollercoaster so superbly written that I was unable to put the book down once I began reading. Alice is forced to call the police when Larissa's mother doesn't return after several hours. Soon the Department of Children and Family Services is involved, with all the red tape, runarounds, and rigamarole that one would expect from an agency who operates with only so much funding and so many hours in the day.

As Larissa is placed in temporary foster care, Alice realizes that she wants to become a foster parent herself, to take care of Larissa if and until her mother can get her back. The journey that follows is an emotional one--Larissa is resentful, hurt, and angry, as only a child can be; Alice is apalled to realize how hidden she has made herself from the world, and how prejudiced she appears to be; Michelle, Larissa's mother, is alternately sorry for her brief abandonment and intolerable of criticism.

THE SOUND OF US is a rich novel on so many levels. Alice is already dealing with the loss of her twin brother the previous year, and the fact that her parents are getting older. She realizes that although she loves her job, being an interpreter for the deaf, she can't rely on it to be the sole basis for a fulfilling life.

Kudos to Ms. Willis for such an emotionally moving book. This is the first book I've read by her, but I've now added all of her previous releases to my reading list. You won't be disappointed by picking up a copy of this magnificent story.

One call in the middle of the night changes two lives forever.

While it was not one of my favorites by Sarah Willis, I enjoyed the story.