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The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
Audiobook6 hours

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

A timely and moving bicultural coming-of-age tale, based on a true story and told by an author who has struggled with the same issues as her protagonist.The daughter of a Danish immigrant and a black G.I., Rachel survives a family tragedy only to face new challenges. Sent to live with her strict African-American grandmother in a racially divided Northwest city, she must suppress her grief and reinvent herself in a mostly black community. A beauty with light brown skin and blue eyes, she attracts much attention in her new home. The world wants to see her as either black or white, but that#8217;s not how she sees herself.Meanwhile, a mystery unfolds, revealing the terrible truth about Rachel#8217;s last morning on a Chicago rooftop. Interwoven with her voice are those of Jamie, a neighborhood boy who witnessed the events, and Laronne, a friend of Rachel#8217;s mother. Inspired by a true story of a mother#8217;s twisted love, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky reveals an unfathomable past and explores issues of identity at a time when many people are asking #8220;Must race confine us and define us?#8221;Narrated by an ensemble, with Emily Bauer (Rachel), Kathleen McInerney (Nella), and Karen Murray (Jamie, LaRone, Brick, Roger).
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 10, 2010
ISBN9781598879377
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

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Reviews for The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Rating: 3.980392156862745 out of 5 stars
4/5

153 ratings78 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm still digesting all the elements of this story. It's quite compelling, and there some wonderful passages. There is also an underlying sense of melancholy, which is not a bad thing, but I think my actual rating would be more like three and a half stars. After a few days of rumination I may get energetic and put a real review on here.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Authentic story line, descriptive and emotive. A must read!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best YA/crossovers I've read in awhile. I read this book in about 2 nights.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The main character, Rachel, is the daughter of a Danish woman and a black GI giving her unique physical characteristics (blue eyes, light brown skin, light frizzy hair). The majority of this book takes place as Rachel lives with her grandmother (her Dad's mother) in Portland, Oregon during the 70's and 80's (just a guess, no exact date is given that I recall). A great tragedy occurs at the beginning of the book, and it is this event that leaves Rachel to spend the remainder of her childhood with her strict grandmother.My synopsis makes this book sound rather dull, but I'm afraid that's how I perceived it as a whole. For me, there was a huge disconnect between characters, events taking place in their lives, and me - the reader. The characters were not portrayed in a way that made me care for them; there was no emotional link. I picked this book because of the unique perspective it provided on racial tension and being a child of parents with different races, but I did not particularly enjoy the way that this tension was addressed. Maybe, this is because of the realistic portrayal; but, I feel as if it was because I was not fully aquainted with the characters. Heidi Durrow, the author, was a child of a Danish mother and black father, so I don't dare argue with her descriptions of the present racial tension. I just did not become engrossed in what could have been a heart-wrenching novel.Recommendation: Check out other reviews before deciding whether this is for you or not. For me, it missed the mark on character development and portrayal of emotions. Maybe you will see it differently!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wonderful read....very sad, but with a hopeful ending!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Girl Who Fell from the Sky speaks beautifully of grief and hope, despair and perseverance. Rachel, a young girl, finds herself stuck between two worlds, with light skin and blue eyes, where she is not black due to these contrasting features, and not exactly white because her skin is too dark. Durrow handles this story subtly and with unfliching honesty she slowly pieces together what happened on the roof as well as family secrets that contributed to it. We see how this event ultimately shapes Rachel's life. The mystery is slowly unraveled as the book shifts amongst narrators, perspective and time. Instead of confusing or irritating its audience, the novel's structure only adds to its power. It is a sad and compelling plot that shows how the subtleties of racism really limits and harms us and others.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another story written from multiple points of view which jumps back and forth through time. That seems to be the zeitgeist these days.The story is about Rachel, a biracial child who survives a horrible tragedy that takes away her family, and Brick, the little boy who saw Rachel and her family fall from the sky. It is a coming of age story for both of them with two primary aspects to their coming of age:- dealing with the tragedy which they share.- dealing with the fact that their appearance differs from the expectations of others.Their are other aspects of identity addressed in the story including the language, cultural, and racial aspects of identity. The story is a worthy story. The writing is uneven and the story feels choppy as the narrative jumps between characters and skips through blocks of time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After her mother and two siblings plunge to their death from the ninth floor of their Chicago apartment house, Rachael Morse goes to Portland, ORE to live with her paternal grandmother. It is here that Rachael learns that the question of race will define her life.
    Her father, a black American serviceman, met her Danish mother when when he was stationed in Germany. Rachael grew up in the color-blind society of American air bases abroad, she spoke Danish and English, and she never realized that she was considered black, albeit with blue eyes.
    Heidi Durrow's poignant debut novel explores identity, loss, love, and acceptance. A very good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Growing up biracial. Pulled a lot from her own childhood, apparently, added a great conflict at the center - good example of exploring a personal issue within/around an intriguing plot. I loved the way she wove the stories of two different children together. My copy had an interview with her at the end, was quite interesting to learn she also grew up with a Scandinavian mother.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another brilliant debut novel. The author deals sensitively with issues of race, identity, parenthood, sexuality, loyalty, honesty, and so much more. The tone is somewhat emotionally removed, perhaps because the subject matter is so emotionally loaded. The characters are never as simple as they first seem to be, they are always so much more nuanced, more complicated, and usually more troubled. The story, we learn is based on true events and the main character's racial background is the same as the author's, she has woven her identity and an event into a stunning novel that I can't stop thinking about. Great book club material!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    An event alters Rachel’s world forever sending her to her grandmother’s house, into a world where color defines her. The mystery of Rachel’s demise and its effects on the surrounding community are slowly revealed throughout the story. The story is written from several characters points of view told in third person, except for Rachel, who speaks in first person. This format would have made more sense if Rachel’s sections dominated the novel, but they don’t and this leads to a very uneven pattern to the flow of the story. The character of Rachel is also not the strongest written character, I think the first person account was used to make up for this fact, but instead emphasizes the weakness.The most compellingly written character was the young man, Brick, who you end up yearning to hear more about, but instead are disappointed when the story switches to someone else. Not all of the characters seem to have an important role in the unraveling of this story. The supervisor of Rachel’s mother is one character that enters as a voice of an outsider who makes opinionated statements on an employee she barely knew. These intersections cut the flow to the story and add little else overall.I also had trouble understanding the time period due to the attitudes expressed and the speech pattern and sayings from the grandmother. I became shocked when I read in a later chapter that the story was set in 1980s Portland and not 1960s in the South or even the 1980s in the South.In the end the story was awkward, frustrating and disappointing with few likeable characters and the overall flow of the novel felt piecemealed together from a host of shorter writings.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This well-written novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a black US serviceman and a white Danish mother. Growing up in Europe, Rachel and her family had a very different experience with race than they encountered on their return to the US. As the story of how Rachel came to live with her grandmother and aunt unfolds, the terrible central tragedy of Rachel's life is revealed. As Rachel grows up trying to reconcile what she knows about herself and her family with the life her grandmother wants her to lead, she is torn by conflicting demands and the pressures of developing her own self identity. A powerful and moving narrative.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is another great "The Girl Who" book though completely different from the Millennium Series. This would be a great book club selection.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Loved! Destined to become a classic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It says a lot that this debut novel has already won The Bellwether Prize (an award for literary fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships). It says a lot that Durrow is being compared to Toni Morrison, Nella Larsen and the early Langston Hughes. What can't be said until you read it for yourself is how deeply the reader will grow to care for Rachel, the lone survivor of her mother's attempted murder/suicide (her brother and baby sister were no so lucky) who has come to live with her grandmother in Portland in the early 1980s. Rachel is biracial, but her remaining extended family and the kids at school see her as black, something Rachel had never before thought about. This coming of age drama is woven into the mystery of what happened to push her mother over the edge and is told over the course of several years. It's full of characters whose whole lives were changed that day by the tragedy that day , and things come full circle in a deeply meaningful and satisfying way. I found it very difficult to put this book down. This is a powerful read and an amazing first novel by a new voice to watch in literary fiction.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story starts slow and at times is hard to keep up with the events in different points of view. But, the story is engrossing and the build up to the end is sad and haunting and hopeful. This characters are gonna stay with me for quite some time.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book definitely tells a compelling story I have never read before. So many books have similar themes but this one is unique with all the characters having their own tragic stories which weave themselves into the bigger story of a family in trouble. Durrow interweaves subjects of substance abuse, race, death, women abandoned by men and growing up with multiple difficult and emotional life circumstances and trying to be normal. Durrow tells her story in an upbeat manor allowing the reader to remain optimistic despite the challenging life struggles of each of the characters. I chose to listen to the audio version of this book and enjoyed the narrator and the flow of the story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Rachel was the only survivor when she, her mother and her siblings fell nine stories from the roof of their building in Chicago. Moving in with her grandmother, she needs to deal with her family history, her missing father, her mixed race heritage, as well as growing up and making a life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a sad but insightful book about the challenges sometimes faced by biracial children, whose parents come from markedly different backgrounds and cultures. It is well worth reading and would be a good candidate for book club discussions.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is a the story of a biracial girl who doesn't realize that her skin color and her blue eyes make a difference in the world. It is the 1980s in Seattle when 5th grader Rachel moves in with her black grandmother and aunt after her mother and two siblings fall to their death. Rachel's father, although still living, is not in the picture. Smart and pretty, Rachel navigates her way through a world where people have predisposed ideas about race. If you liked Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye, you will like this beautifully written book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Beautiful story, so moving and very unique. The audio production is also wonderful. One of the best stories I've read/listened to in a long time. Highly recommend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love novels that are told from different characters' points of view. In The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, the author gives us three alternating narrators. Twelve-year old Rachel has survived a terrible tragedy (well, she has survived physically, at least), and her life and her sense of self change drastically when she is sent to be raised by her grandmother in Portland, Oregon. Jamie, the son of a junkie prostitute, has witnessed the tragedy and becomes obsessed with it. Unbeknownst to her, he visits Rachel in the hospital, where he befriends her father. The man tells him a story and makes him promise to tell it to Rachel one day--a promise that pushes Jamie to leave home and change his identity. The third voice, which we don't begin to hear until later in the novel, is that of Rachel's mother, Nella; we hear her only through her brief but painful diary entries.In Portland, young Rachel finds herself trying to understand not only the events leading up to her mother's tragic decision but her own racial identity--or the lack of it. "Light skinned-ed" with blue eyes, she is the daughter of an African-American soldier and a Danish woman (like Durrow herself). Never before has she had to answer the question, "What are you?" But living with her black grandmother and aunt leads others to answer the question for her, and she struggles with the fact that people expect her to choose to be labelled either black or white rather than to be herself, "a story." Durrow's moving novel is finely written, spare and and at times poetic: images of birds, flying, and falling pervade the narrative, almost acting like a framework. The author merges her personal experiences with those of Rachel, making her character's thoughts and feelings all the more believable. While not a story that I want to say that I "enjoyed," I appreciated its artful telling, its fine characterizations, and its illumination of issues that I hadn't really thought about deeply before.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A powerful, and moving story. The story is interwoven by many voices who tell the story of Rachel, a girl who survives an unbelievable tragedy. The story is filled with sadness, neglect, and racial adversity. It handles heavyweight topics, yet is still a story of a girl, and her past and her future. Beautifully written, and characters that ring far too true.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There was nothing I did not like about this book. It was a gripping read and it is very readable.I like the use of multiple-narrators as I like knowing diffent parts of the story. I like that in this novel some of the narrators are relatively minor characters such as Nella's boss. I also like the use of diaries in novels. So win-win really.The characters were all distinct individuals who fitted into the novel well - no one was over-powering.I didn't give it 5 stars because I was hoping it didn't end there ... I wanted to know what happened next.I do think this would be a great book for using at school with 16 - 18 year olds. Great themes and characters. In saying that, it's not a Young Adult book - it is an adult novel, so don't be put off by my suggestion.I would highly recommend this novel if you like novels where characters search for their identity or for a better understanding of themselves, their lost family and their worlds.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It said it was based on a true story, I never felt it that way. The story is slow.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The germ of this story about a mother leaping off a building with her children (which did happen), is tragic and interesting, and the same can be said for the difficulties that children of mixed race have in fitting into either of their parent’s cultures. However, this novel is poorly executed. The writing is devoid of artistry and “dumbed down” to the point of elementary school level; one needn’t do that to create young adult fiction (see “The Book Thief”). Everyone in the book talks like a five-year-old. The plot and the actions of the characters are also often unrealistic, and there is no payoff at the end, with the possible exception of the thought “thank God I’ve finished this book”. See how far you get before you start saying “ugh”, then stop reading it.Quotes:On the African-American experience:“Laronne’s mother had her own story of ‘The First Time I Was Called a Nigger.’ Her father did too. These stories were passed down to Laronne when it happened to her that day. They did not help her stop crying. They did not soothe.”On the Blues:“Well, I would explain the blues this way: Like for me, I imagine inside of a person there’s a blue bottle, you know? … The bottle is where everything sad or mean or confusing can go. And the blues – it’s like that bottle. But in the bottle there’s a seed that you let grow. Even in the bottle it can grow big and green. It’s full of all those feelings that are in there, but beautiful and growing, too.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Audiobook performed by Karen Murray, Emily Bauer, and Kathleen McInerneyFrom the book jacket: Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy after a fateful morning on a Chicago rooftop. Forced to move to a new city with her African-American grandmother as her guardian, Rachel is thrust for the first time into a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, startling blue eyes, and beauty bring a constant stream of attention her way. My reactionsI found the book in turns horrifying, moving, disturbing, riveting, and confusing. The story moves back and forth in time, and with multiple narrators. The reader certainly gets the sense of Rachel’s confusion – about her identity, about her parentage, about what actually happened, about who and what she’s supposed to be now. I was moved by Rachel’s predicament. And empathized with her struggles to come to terms with what had happened to her, and to those she loved. The ramifications of one desperate act rippled outward to affect not only Rachel, but her grandmother and the witnesses to the event. All of them were somehow traumatized by that one afternoon on the roof – whether directly involved or not. While the attention is focused on Rachel, some of the supporting characters are equally moving; Rachel’s grandmother, Roger, and Brick are particularly important and I really appreciated the complexity of their characters as written. All told, this is a great debut, and I look forward to reading future works by Durrow. The audio book was capably performed by a trio of talented artists: Karen Murray, Emily Bauer and Kathleen McInerney. The opening of the audio DID tell which of these artists voiced which sections, but I failed to write it down before returning it to the library. I can tell you that one voiced Rachel, one voiced her mother Nella, and the third covered the narration and all other characters. Given the structure of the novel, using different narrators was very effective in helping to keep this listener/reader on track.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Winner of the Belwether Prize for fiction in 2010, this is a nicely executed novel of the no-man's (or woman's) land between racial definitions. The protagonist is a young woman born of a "white" mother and "black" father, a survivor of a family suicide, who struggles to find herself in an environment that seems unfavorable. Using alternate narrators and some chronology shifting, the book is an easy read with some not so easy revelations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very powerful. A little confusing at some points as it goes from character to character. Rachel survives her mother's attempt to kill herself and her children, but does not save her brother Robbie. Her mother throws her brother and sister off the roof and Rachel attempts to jump and land to protect her brother. She survives and they don't. Rachel is a blue eyed mulatto and the stress of her life continues on.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Girl Who Fell from the Sky tells the story of Rachel Morse, the sole survivor of her Danish mother's maternal psychosis that ended in the deaths of her mother and her siblings. She is sent to live with her African American grandmother and aunt. While they love her, her grandmother especially is wary of her mixed ethnicity and any influence Rachel's mother's mental illness may have on her. Growing up with the weight of her mother's actions and her mixed heritage is challenging. Is she responsible for the sins of her mother? How can she find her way to herself when there is no one else out there like her?This is a wonderful novel, but I have absolutely no idea how to review it. It tells the story of Rachel and her mother from various viewpoints, helping to paint a more complete picture. I liked how Rachel's mom lived on through her subtlety and most significantly through her AA slogans. Rachel's life isn't the only one changed forever as a result of that afternoon at the top of their Chicago high rise. Brick, a child who witnessed Rachel's brother fall from the sky, was also a victim of sorts. Both are survivors, though. That's what makes this book so powerful.My Final ThoughtsI thought this novel was an interesting character study that was both honest and respectful of person. It brings to light the plight of mothers who are mentally ill, bi-racial children, learning to make adult choices, and growing up despite overwhelming odds. I may not be able to articulate just why very well, but I do recommend The Girl Who Fell From the Sky for these reasons and more. It is well deserving of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction.