This is a novel about little things and how they all matter. How small acts of courage and kindness can culminate into something wonderful and how seemingly insignificant negative events can manifest into a terrible tragedy.

 

It’s about regular people facing tough choices and doing the right thing. In that way Laura McBrides’s novel, We Are Called to Rise is positive and uplifting.

 

When a routine traffic violation turns into a police officer shooting and killing the mother of two young children, Bashkim and Tirana, a disparate group of characters come together and “rise” to mitigate the suffering.

 

Interestingly, all those who “rise” are women. There’s Avis, the mother of the war veteran Nate, the police officer who shoots the woman. There’s Roberta, the Court Appointed Services Advocate and defender of children; the abueula (grandmother) of Luis a traumatized war vet; Mrs. Monaghan, Baskim’s teacher, Dr. Moore, the elementary school principal, Mrs. Delain, the foster mother; and, even the victim, Bashkim’s mother.

 

Even low level characters who are women are portrayed as reasonable, including Darcy, the woman Avis’s husband leaves her for, and Lauren the battered young wife of Nate who won’t report his abuse to the authorities because it will jeopardize his job on the police force.

 

All those who “do not rise”, and in some cases sink are men. They include Bashkim’s paranoid, misogynistic father; Avis’s son Nate, the shooter, wife beater and PSTD sufferer; Luis, a soldier who killed an innocent child in Iraq and has attempted suicide because of his guilt; Avis’s husband Jim who dumps her for no apparent reason after nearly three decades of marriage.

 

Even minor male characters are portrayed as weak or ineffectual including Roberta’s husband Marty who tells her “she’s bitten off more than she can chew” in trying to help the children; and Corey, Nate’s partner during the actual shooting who is “just sad” and “not likely to be a police officer next year.”

 

If McBride wanted to balance her gender bias she could have easily made the principal and the school teacher men, or how about giving the foster mother compassionate husband?

 

They say if you really want to know about an author the best way is to read their fiction. I enjoyed McBride’s fiction and I wouldn’t go as far as to say her gender portrayal is an indication of misandry, but it does give me pause.

 

 

 

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

This is one of the most emotionally moving books I’ve read in a long time and while I had been looking forward to reading it, I had no idea it would have such a huge impact on me.Based loosely on a real life event (VERY LOOSELY), this book has a way of capturing your heart and making you feel overwhelmed with the realities of lifewhere people can get away with things. In spite of the saddness that is packed in this book, this book gives you hope. Hope that while terrible things happen, all is not lost.

This book has four different storylines that are brought together by a terrible incident (which I will not mention for the fear of spoiling as it doesn’t occur until halfway through the book). There are little things that connect these stories though and one of the major connections, aside from the fact that all 4 narrators live or come from Las Vegas, is war. War is an ugly thing and I love the way the author portrays it. She shows what it does to young men who didn’t know what they were getting into but it also shows a side of it, which while not positive, isn’t completely negative. Like this one instance where, Luis, a young soldier who has been on 91 live runs, talks about how when you’re at war, you forget about the trivial differences between people, it doesn’t matter what god they pray to or what race they are, the only thing that matters is protecting one another and SURVIVING.

This book is brimming with diversity and it’s so beautifully brought to life in the city of Las Vegas. I, for one, have never really imagined Las Vegas as anything but the stereotypes portray it to be, a lively city with a dynamic night life and tons of casinos but the author brings to light another side of the city, the one with ‘regular’ life.

The book opens with Avis, a 53, year old who has just found out that her husband is in love with another woman. Avis was a great character. She had a horrible childhood and it has had a major impact on the person she is today.There are constant flashbacks into her past but they are paragraphs and not pages. They give an insight into why she is this scared person who is afraid of not being noticed. The person who can be insecure at times and is wonders if life is worth going on anymore since there seems to be nothing to live for. The situation with her son changes things. Nate’s time in the army has changed him. Changed him to the point where he may or may not be abusing his wife and when Nate finally crosses the line Avis is forced to consider the possibility that her son is no longer the little innocent boy she knew him to be. As the story progresses, Avis has to choose between her role as a mother and doing the right thing and she grows. She grows as a character and throughout the book we see how her past forces her to re-evaluate certain things. It’s wonderful watching her progress throughout the book and she doesn’t let you down in the end.

The only thing that I didn’t really like about her story was her husband. Jim bothered the living daylights out of me and personally I had wished things would have gone another way. The Jim of the past sounded like a wonderful guy but the Jim we knew? I couldn’t even fathom the two as being the one and the same. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if things hadn’t turned out the way they had and they two would have dealt with the issue together instead.

Roberta only played a minor part in the book even though she had her own story line. Her story line wasn’t really personal and didn’t add much to the story which is why I am not sure it was needed. I never really got to learn more about her as a person aside from the fact that she really liked helping people and wanted to make as much as a difference as she could and really, if that’s all the author wanted to show, it would have been easier to make it evident from a 3rd POV instead of her having a narrative. In my opinion, that page space could have been better spent on exploring the other story lines.

Luis’s story was heartbreaking. He is just a 22 year old and has lived through more things than any kid should have to. He didn’t have a sad/heartbreaking childhood though, he, from what I can gather, had a perfectly normal childhood aside from the fact that his grandmother had raised him. His time in Iraq affected him, a mistake he made haunts him, to the extent where he may or may not have indirectly caused the death of his buddy and to the point where he killed himself after writing a very offensive letter to an 8 year old. A lot of the book deals with him trying to recover from the trauma he is suffered and we get a small glimpse of PTSD.

It’s really overwhelming to see his struggle. The way he cannot seem to remember what actually happened and the way he is surprised by the kindness he is shown by Dr. Ghosh. It’s heartbreaking to see him latch on to the hope of forgiveness that an 8 year old offers him with and it’s heartbreaking to see this guy, who is barely an adult himself, have to live with so much guilt.

The character who really stole my heart and the show is the said 8 year old, Bashkim. It took him only a few pages to weasel his way into my heart. His innocence stole my heart and the way he had more courage than so many adults really made me just want to hug him. His story really tears your heart out and seeing any 8 year old in that situation would get even the most unfeeling to at least feel some compassion.

One of my favorite things about Bashkim’s story, aside from the wonderfulness of his character, was how the author chose to portray his father. His father, although someone who could not be labelled as innocent and for a large part was unlikeable, was also a poor man with no way out. He was not a great man but at the same time, he wasn’t an evil guy. He was an immigrant who hadn’t caught a break in what seemed like forever. It’s what made the situation they were in so much more heartbreaking. The fact that they had no family to turn to and the fact that they were poor would ensure that they would never get justice and that tore my heart out.

I cannot say much about the plot because saying anything would be spoiling the book and in all honesty, it’s something everyone needs to experience for themselves.

With a delightfully complex characters and a powerful message at its heart, this is a story that’ll leave you thinking for a long time.

I am not sure I’ve done this book justice with my review but it’s safe to say this is one of the most moving books I’ve read this year and I’d definitely recommend this to anyone looking for something deeper.

. 4.5 Stars

I had a hard time parting company with the characters in this novel and think they will stay with me a long time.

We are called to rise is a wonderful thought provoking novel with amazing characters and and a great setting.

I have to be honest and say if I had passed this novel in the book shop I would never have picked it up and that is down to the cover of the book. But I would have missed out on a wonderful story if it hadn't been for a few reviews of my Good read friends.
This book is set in Las Vegas and having visited there a few years ago and been amazed at glitz and glamour I did wonder how people lived their day to day lives in this city. I wondered how you reared a family there and while I loved the noise, and the casinos and the shopping I found myself wondering could I live in this fast moving environment for more than a week and the answer was no I like the quiet too much.

The characters in this novel are extremely well written and the voices are real and the images portrayed in the novel really have an impact on you. There is so much I want to say about this novel and I cant as I don't want to spoil the book for other readers . This book made me think about how I would react to the situations in the novel and how I would cope under the circumstances. I found myself thinking about this story even when I wasn't reading it. This would make a wonderful book club read as its a book you just want to talk about.

I did have an issue with the conclusion of the story and really don't think the children's placement with Graciela Reyes could happen and it threw me a tiny bit at the end of this wonderful novel. It didn't however spoil the the story as this is a character driven novel and its the characters that make this story.

A great debut novel and I cant wait for Laura McBrides next book.