Review - Hum If You Don't Know the Words (Bianca Marais)

To my friend Becky-the-Engineer, I have a love-hate relationship with you currently. Every book you've recommended has evoked things within me that make my soul burn with a fire and life. And every single one of them has me crying and catching my breath.

Damn you, warn a girl before she takes your reading recommendations!

Hum is truly a powerful, profound book. Set in Johannesburg during Apartheid made for a compelling, action-packed, and emotional backdrop as one reads of love, loss, and growing up too soon. The evolution of Robin and her sister Cat is beautifully melancholy, and watching Robin blossom in a way where innocence cuts sharper than racism while love runs thicker than blood.

Beauty - Beauty really got to me. As a mom torn between finding her daughter and staying with her sons after losing her husband and grieving him twice. As a mom, my heart ached reading through Beauty's story, how she went so long living in fear tangled with hope, and just how beautifully she shone through it all.

I would have never read this book had it not been recommended to me - but I'm learning it's very healthy to lean into what I'm feeling. (and by leveraging some ho'oponopono, I was able to fully explore the root of my emotions stirred by this powerful book).

5 stars all the way.

Happy reading - don't forget the tissues.
--Jennifer