Promise the Moon: A Novel

While I thought Pieces of my Sisters Life was a better book, I still think this is well written and thought provoking. Many of our soldiers are suffering with the after effects of war. No matter what your political views are these soldiers have given a lot and deserve our help and support. As with her last book, I found the characters not always very likeable, but very real.

I just finished Promise the Moon by Elizabeth Joy Arnold. I found the book to be compelling with a very timely story line. Natalie, the main character of the book, is a newly widowed young women with two small children. Her husband, an Iraq war veteran, killed himself leaving Natalie to cope with the huge emotional problems she and her children are feeling. I particularly like how the author does not shy away from the ugly, serious subject matters. In her previous book Pieces of my Sister's Life, there were many tough to read events including some violence. I found it hard to read at times but also a very well written book. Promise the Moon is very much the same. There are few subjects more difficult to read about than the suicide of a young father and the utter despair and guilt it leaves the survivors. Adding that to the fact that he is a veteran of a heavily controversial war, a war that many believe is wrong in the first place makes it even more compelling. I find Elizabeth Joy Arnold's writing a gift to read, and her subject matter intensely interesting.

Promise the Moon by Elizabeth Joy Arnold is such an emotional read that will stay long with you after you finish reading. A family that has been destroyed by depression and suicide must find the way to more on and find hope and happiness even though everything they once knew has been changed. Josh is now dead and left behind a wife, Natalie and two young children, a daughter Anna, age ten, and a son, Toby age five. Josh, a Marine, came back from his second tour in Iraq a changed man and suffered from post traumatic stress. Josh did not die a hero fighting a war, but instead he couldn't live with himself and decided to shoot himself in the head in the garage. And now Natalie is left all alone to pick up the pieces. Natalie and her children must move from the military base back home with her parents. Her mother is suffering from Alzheimer's and her father welcomes them and does his best under the current situation. Josh use to put special notes in a secret hiding place in the bathroom that only he, Toby and Anna knew about. Josh explained that the notes and small gifts he would leave there while he was away showed his love for them. Even though Toby knows his dad is in heaven, he believes Josh still writes to him. Actually, Anna is the one writing the letters to her younger brother. Natalie tries her best to go on with her life and help her children. Natalie is barely holding it together and has more questions than answers and unless she can confront the truth about Josh's illness and the concerns of her children, she may never forgive Josh for what he has done and find the strength in herself to go on without him. Promise the Moon is one of the most powerful books I have read in a very long time. Elizabeth Joy Arnold's tale of suicide, depression and heartache brought me to tears. This is one book you will not want to miss out on and afterward, you may find yourself a changed person. Natalie is a character that will stay with you long after you finish reading. Her strength and willpower to carry on under the most horrible of circumstances is amazing. She feels that she has failed herself, Josh, and her two children, who may never get over their own grief. Anna and Toby have very realistic emotions and actions as they try to deal with their father's death in their own ways. Anna is troubled and her suffering will cut you like a knife. When a book brings out the tears like Promise the Moon did, there are really no other words to explain how incredible a read this is. Elizabeth Joy Arnold deserves great praise and applause. Kate Garrabrant

Two months have passed since Toby went mute and his older sister Anna pretended she is okay but sneaks down to look at the picture every night. Their mom Natalie hides her anger and fear from her broken kids, but whenever she gets a chance she kicks the gravestone of their father, her husband Josh. Two months and the marines are kicking them off Camp Pendleton as the three are no longer military family not since Josh splattered his brains in their garage for Toby to find him. To help them adjust Natalie has been corresponding as Josh from heaven writing to Anna and Toby, who respond back. Her masquerade has helped Toby, who has begun talking, but Anna remains stoic hiding her fears while insisting Josh is talking to her; telling her things only he would know. Natalie is worried that someone else knew Josh intimately and is revealing family secrets to Anna, but who? Could it be Iraq, which his service time and a nasty incident led to his suicide or someone else? A broken family struggles with the aftermath of suicide. PROMISE THE MOON is not an easy book to read as the angst is stratospheric, but is a relevant tale that focuses on the aftermath of a military suicide on the family members. The story line is character driven; more so by mom and daughter who rotate viewpoint as each uses lies to hide their depression behind a veneer of coping from each other and especially from vulnerable Toby. Fascinatingly a third generation also conceals truths from the others. Military suicide is a serious current issue that the leadership struggles with helping returning soldiers from the war zone to prevent, but Elizabeth Joy Arnold makes the case that more must be done for the families when it occurs. Harriet Klausner

I absolutely adored Pieces of My Sister's Life, and I always worry when I pick up a second novel that it won't be anywhere near as good, because I've read many authors who've suffered from "sophomore slump." (Look at Alice Sebold's latest, for example.) Well, no need to worry. I loved this book, maybe even more than her first. It was not only extremely topical, making me look at both the war and at grief in a way I never had before, it also hooked me from the first page with the same twists and unanswered questions that kept me reading her first book well into the night. The author writes her characters so wonderfully that you actually feel like a fly on the wall, watching their lives. The story is heartbreaking, yes, but I also laughed at loud in several spots. I especially enjoyed the chapters told from 10 year old Anna's point of view. She's both wise and innocent and incredibly strong, and you'll want to jump into the book to hug her! I will say, though, that there were about 30-50 pages in the middle that could've been taken out. The book was a bit longer than it needed to be. But at that point I was so invested in the characters that I had to read on to find out where the story was going, the truth of why Josh died, the secrets Anna was hiding, etc. So even during those pages, it was hard to put the book down. All I can say is bravo, and that I hope the author writes her next book soon!