I recently devoured The Underside of Joy, by Sere Prince Halverson. I've been trying to pinpoint why exactly I read this book so quickly, maybe because it was the first fiction book I'd picked up in a while? Maybe it was just time to read a good book? Because it takes place in Northern California where we just moved from (and still miss)?
It's not exactly the type of book I'd read, it's about what happens with your world suddenly turns upside down. Her husband is suddenly killed (it's on the back of the book, so I feel okay sharing that tidbit) and she's left to care for her stepchildren, ones she's basically raised since birth and loves as her own, their own mother having abandoned them. Or so she's been told.
I don't have any personal experience with stepmoms or stepchildren, but because the author is both herself, I feel like this gives the book much more depth - she writes in a way that you can understand, you can comprehend what that might be like. It was devastating to read, to see bits of what it would be like to lose your husband (or wife, respectively) and inspiring to see how she came to cope with that, and with all the other things that were thrown into the mix during it all.
It made me wonder what would happen to us, to Wyatt, if anything were to happen to either or both of us. We're young, and I've naively not touched any of the will / custody issues, for many stupid / bury-my-head-in-the-sand reasons. Obviously that does us no good. I think the only thing we've got covered is Caleb's life insurance, but that hardly solves half the issues that would arise in such an occasion.
Basically, Caleb and I need to sit down and figure this stuff out. And thank our lucky stars every day that we wake up and don't have to deal with it yet.
Check out the book here!
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