Shelter Me

Shelter Me by Juliette Fay
Janie’s husband Robby died four months ago, leaving her alone to raise their four year old son and seven month old daughter. She is barely keeping it together, staying above water with the help of her overbearing Aunt Jude and helpful cousin Cormac. One day, a carpenter named Tug shows up on her doorstep, ready to build the covered porch that Robby had planned as a surprise birthday present, but hadn’t gotten the chance to give her. With Tug’s watchful presence and weekly visits with a priest, Janie starts to take control of her life as well as letting go of things she knows she can’t change.

I knew this was dangerous territory when I read the book review—dead husband, young children to take care of. But I picked it up anyway. The author Fay effectively describes the grief that Janie and her son endure during the first year of Robby’s death. Every time I picked up the book, I would tear up or cry during the reading because the scenes were just so heartbreaking. But there is hope: Janie and her son and others she didn’t even realize were touched, work through their grief and get to a different, hopefully better, place.

I must say that I didn’t like the first half of the book at all. I wish it would have mentioned in the back cover description of the book that the themes of child sexual abuse and self-defense were involved. If I had known these would have been covered, I wouldn’t have read the book (when I told my husband these were mentioned, he told me to stop reading, but by that time, I had to keep reading to make sure Janie would be okay). In the materials at the end of the book, the author describes how she had years of experience in child abuse prevention and how she herself had taken a self-defense class, so I can understand her drawing upon her own experiences for the book, but I hated these too-harsh doses of reality. Perhaps she used them as a device to have Janie prove to herself that she was strong enough to guide herself and her children in this new world they found themselves in, but I thought they were completely unnecessary.

More than anything, I wish I had read this in a book club, because there were so many things I would have liked to discuss with others. The discussion questions included in the back of the book bring up things I hadn’t even thought of (like symbolism—I generally read too literally to think about what the author is hinting at).

Overall, a bit heavier than your standard chick lit fare, but very descriptive and worthwhile.