It’s strange to think about the small moments that have huge repercussions. When you get down to it, little decisions can have as much impact as seemingly big ones. (Which means that when you’re indecisive like me, you might be in trouble.) I addressed this in my review of Blink, but it’s really easy to wonder how things would change if those really little moments had gone differently. It’s impossible to know, of course, but it’s not hard to envision what circumstances could have made that impactful difference. It’s sobering, really, to think about the number of little moments that make up one life, let alone the full scope of all lives. And it’s a little scary.
The most beautiful television iteration of this was on an episode of How I Met Your Mother– really, the entire series surrounds this concept- and Aziz Ansari does a funny little take on it as well. Within the book, the author said it best through the character Roberta:
“A split second separates the long-lost friends who either see or miss each other at an an airport. And from that, a relationship does or does not develop, perhaps a lifetime partnership, perhaps even children. Human beings who might or might not have existed. Whole lives born out of the most fragile of happenstance.
And maybe that’s why our lives are beautiful; why they’re tragic…that so little matters so much, and so much matters so little.”
And that’s really what this book is about.
We Are Called to Rise is a book told from four different perspectives surrounding the same one event. I won’t give anything away, but it’s such a beautifully done book that that moment just unfolds before you- while there is an understanding from just the description that these seemingly far flung characters will be brought together somehow, it doesn’t feel obvious in most places how this will come to be. The characters (at least the narrating characters) are really well developed and it’s not hard to become invested in their stories. The writing is somewhat simple but beautiful and I loved that each narrator had his or her own distinct style of speaking, which is important when jumping around among characters.
The book itself can be a little unsatisfying at times- I found myself wanting to know even more about the secondary characters and never get to- but it does all come together and not necessarily with a neat little bow as some books have a tendency to do. All around enjoyable- good for a somewhat substantial fiction read.
You’ll like this if: you ever think about how weirdly interconnected we all are and how small this world can be. I know there are books like this that I’ve read and other movies that I’ve seen, but the best parallel I can think of at the moment is the movie Crash.
Happy reading!
carlyreads 