Bridge of Clay By Markus Zusak

This is the story of the Dunbar boys, the Murderer, and the Mistake Maker where the beginning, middle, and end are mixed together until it's hard to be sure which is which.

This wonderful book does the work to remind us that all stories are more complicated than they appear on the surface, particularly our family stories. As hard as we try to simplify them, there are too many characters and tangents and beautiful moments that are too important to ignore.

This book is proving difficult to summarize. On one front it's about a bridge. On another it's about mourning. On another it's about falling in love. On another it's about forgiveness. And all of these fronts somehow combine to tell the story of the Dunbar boys, the Murderer, the Mistake Maker, and many others. In short, I don't know how to tell you what this book is about, because this book is not a singular story with a clear beginning and a clear end. It's a book that's full of beginnings and middles and ends, not necessarily in that order.

I know that none of that makes a lot of sense. All I can really say is that "Bridge of Clay" is beautiful and heartbreaking and the kind of book that stays with you after you've finished the last page.

Books often make me cry, I've come to expect it. But it's a rare book that makes me cry in a way that I must put the book down and step away so I don't drown in it. And while those rare books aren't all written by Markus Zusak, all books (that I've read) by Markus Zusak are on that list. So I guess my only condition to my recommendation that everyone should read this book is that you shouldn't if you don't want to cry. Or at least feel sad if you don't cry as easily as I do.

XO, Ellen

P.S. How do you all organize your books on your "to read" shelf or list, etc. What I've been doing isn't working super well and I would love to hear some recommendations that could help me get through all these books <3