Ordinary World by Stacy Baggett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Ordinary World by Stacy Baggett is in no way an ordinary book. This is a walk down the memory land of a dead 14-year-old girl, Sherrie. Her birth was a result of a drunken mistake between her mother Grace, who was a teenager at the time of conceiving her, and Mark, who, also like Grace, was a teenager. On finding out that Grace is pregnant with his child, Mark refuses to take care of their child. Instantly going into a panic mode, she marries the first man that she meets. Stephan is a horrible man and he marries Grace, but begins sexually abusing Sherrie soon after her birth. On finding out this disdainful act of Stephan, instead of blaming Stephan, Grace develops a feeling of hatred for her own daughter. The hateful acts of her mother leave an everlasting scar on the innocent heart of Sherrie, which is not washed away even after her death. Throughout her life, she struggled to be a part of a happy family, and her struggle does not end even after her death. Would Sherrie ever be able to accept her death and make peace with it?
The characters of this book are well developed and beautifully written. I have never met with any bad parents, but the narration of Stacy matches with my imagination of them. The conversations are written with sheer elegance and match with the personality of the speaker. The behavior and actions of the characters are in sync with the situation present in front of them, and this increased believability of the entire plot.
There are a plenty of emotions embedded in the plot. While reading the book, I, myself, felt a range of emotions storming inside my head. I could not help but hate the bad parents, who were so busy distorting the life of their kids that they did not bother to notice the side effects of their actions on their childhood. I was angry with Grace for not protecting her own kid from a man that she, herself, brought into the life of her daughter. When Sherrie dies and her soul finds it difficult to move on, I felt her emotions. If I were in her shoes, I would have struggled, too.
Other than the plot and the dialogues, this book has a compilation of various valuable life lessons. The power of forgiveness, the uselessness of hustling through the insignificant aspects of the life, delaying the important conversations with our loved ones are just a few of them. This book forced me to re-evaluate my priorities in life, and I am thankful to the author for it.
Moreover, the vision of the author is really beautiful. Her concept of every soul’s garden becoming beautiful as the person does a good deed, and ugly whenever a person encourages or participates in evil.
I would recommend this book to the readers, who like diving in the world of fantasy and exploring precious life lessons while reading about the other side of the world.
