Alice loses herself in grief and can’t find her way back.In 1954, twenty-six-year-old Alice Patterson undergoes a pregnancy loss that affects everything and everyone she touches. Emotionally and physically drained, she must come to terms with her traumatic loss or risk losing her husband, her best friend, and her sanity.Her best friend JayNell and her husband Paul offer Alice support and comfort. … support and comfort. She persists in her grieving, which hinders her healing. The doctor advises there is no normal recovery period for what Alice has undergone. Time is her best ally.
In her small southern Mississippi town, her church Sewing Circle’s new project triggers an unsettling setback to Alice’s recovery. Afterward, she succumbs to suspicions of Paul’s infidelity that causes her collapse, from which she may not recover.
Paul’s unspoken goal is that they will recapture the love they held for one another on their wedding day. He’s hopeful that the approaching spring season will bring a reawakening of the Alice he married, as it brings a newness to all living things.
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Rich with descriptions of early spring in Talasia, Mississippi, Unraveled takes place in 1954. With the folksy charm and wisdom one can anticipate from the author, we meet Alice and Paul, who have recently lost the baby they had eagerly hoped for to miscarriage. It is fiction, but is still helpful in many ways to those who have had miscarriages as well as those who love them.
Alice and Paul are both very likable, even as they grieve in their own way for their child. Life is different than either of them had envisioned; Paul is running his parent’s furniture store and Alice is a teacher on leave until she can return to work after her miscarriage. Alice is grieving hard, having had the miscarriage only weeks earlier. Her doctor has assured them that grieving is unique to each with regards to intensity and time.
Alice finally chose to go to the sewing group at church with her best friend, JayNell. She learns that the next project they will do is to crochet little caps for the babies at the local hospital and doesn’t think she can do it, but will finish the prayer shawl she started weeks earlier. Alice hears comments from those who mean well but simply don’t know what the best thing is to say to show their love. It is out of desperation, finally, that Alice attends the first meeting of a support group for ladies who have miscarried.
The characters are very likable in that it is easy for the reader to become invested in them. They are also believable, especially considering that most people didn’t speak of miscarriage in those years. Alice’s emotions seem very normal to this reader, as do Paul’s seem to be over the loss, as men and women show feelings differently. JayNell is a good friend, also. Alice hears many things in the group she goes to. It seems there isn’t anyone, however, with whom Alice feels she can share her deepest fears with, until she hears a still, small voice.
I like how well Alice can speak, or at least think through descriptions of how she is feeling, especially describing how there is a black pit inside that slowly consumes more and more of her. One of the things I love is how the author shows the prayers of the individuals. I also love the symbolism, especially the scene with the blue jay that refused to be frightened away by Alice’s knocking on the window, and the unraveled row of crochet. While it is a novel of grief and changes, a tiny flicker of hope is lit that the future can be different. There were moments that I feared what would happen to this precious young woman, and hoped that a lifeline she would grab onto would come to her quickly. I highly recommend this beautifully written novel, especially to those who appreciate well-written Christian women’s fiction, those who want to learn more about the grieving experienced by one who loses a child to miscarriage.
From a grateful heart: I was given this eBook by Book Fun (The Book Club Network) and here is my honest review.