Review: A Dark, Painful Journey With Healing
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 7, 2014
I am exhausted after finishing this book!  The enabling relationship between Bray and Elias was just all over the place.  Bray is genuinely messed up.  She is all over the place.  She is up, she’s down and she can’t make a rational decision and if there is a poor decision to be made she’s all over it.  Elias is hopelessly in love with Bray and is willing to do anything for her.  Their relationship is destructive and it tests how far they are willing to go for love.JA Redmerski captured the essence of dysfunctional families and consequences of poor decisions and how difficult it is to make things right.  I appreciated this element of the story not being sugar coated.Honestly it was very hard for me to connect with these characters.  They don’t seem good, but then they don’t seem so bad.  The problems that they experienced were many.  Bray’s bi-polar disorder is what exhausted me and the emotions and the roller coaster ride of being and dealing with someone suffering from this disorder felt real.  Elias was desperate to “save” Bray and that character was admirable.  I just hoped to have more of a connection with him and what he was experiencing.Song of the Fireflies is a deep and sad story.  This book was unpredictable and full of different twists and turns.  There are many people that Elias and Bray cross paths with and I felt like I was watching a train wreck.  In the end it became clear that everything happened for a reason and was part of the healing process and finding acceptance.  Song of the Fireflies had some trouble shifting gears through the pages.  It started out with a bang but then slowed way down.  The middle pages lagged as the pace slowed and the problems heightened but then the end wrapped up the story nicely.  This was a good book and I appreciated the writer’s style and creativity.  It was true to the anguish mental disorders can bring and it was dark with a bright finish.  Give this a try!!  3.5-4.0 I’m torn.