Book Review: The Walk" and "Miles to Go" By Richard Paul Evans

These books are a series. The first two books are out - the third book won't come out until April 2012...sigh. 

I absolutely LOVE these books, the are a MUST read. They make you reflect deep inside your soul. What would you do if you lost everything? Could you go on? The intriguing thing about this book is the journal entries and how it seems like a biography. It seems real .... not a fictional character. The writing is amazing as it pulls you into Alan's world.

There are so many thought provoking quotes through the book, like:

"The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain. Some people go to such lengths to avoid pain that they give up on life. They bury their hearts, or they drug or drink themselves numb until they don't feel anything anymore. The irony is, in the end their escape becomes more painful than what they're avoiding."

The Walk book was loaned to me by my niece. However, I need to purchase my own copy so that I can go through and highlight the quotes and thoughts that talk to your soul.

About the book:

Put yourself in this situation: the love of your life is thrown from a horse, paralyzed from the waist down, and a month later finally gets to come home, only to die from complications. While you are caring for your love, sitting in the hospital by her bedside 24/7, caring and willing for her to get better, your trusted friend and partner in business rounds up all of your clients and leaves to start his own advertising agency. Your house is foreclosed on, vehicles repossessed, you are left with nothing. Worse than nothing, because the woman you loved and cherished more than anything in this world has been taken from you. Worse yet, she asked you to promise, on her last breath of life, to live. Time frame of this? Six weeks. In just six short weeks, life goes from perfection to devastation. Faced with this situation, what would you do?

For Alan Christoffersen, the answer came to him with a jolt. Walk. That's what he would do. Walk across the country. Finding a map, Alan spreads it out before him, examines it, and decides that Key West, Florida would be the farthest reach from his current residence of Seattle. Packing up a camping backpack, fastening on his highest quality hiking boots, Alan sets out on an unforgettable journey of the heart, soul and psyche.

I loved the new book that came out this month, April 2011. 

Both books are quick reads - or just books I can't put down. I may like "Miles to Go" better then the first book - if that is at all possible. There is more healing in this book. During his walk he encounters people whom he is instrumental in helping them heal their own wounds in their spirit and soul. In turn by helping them, it helps in his own healing.  

Quote: There are equally hopeful messages in the continuing journey: "There are still people out there with selfless, giving hearts;" "I guess sometimes we're lucky to have someone to miss so much;" "cowards always hide behind bravado or stoicism; it takes courage to show emotion;" 

"there's no problem so big that whining won't make it worse;" 

"each small step was an act of faith and hope, affirming to myself that life was worth living."

About the book:

Alan Christoffersen, a once-successful advertising executive, wakes one morning to find himself injured, alone, and confined to a hospital bed in Spokane, Washington. Sixteen days earlier, reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Carrying only a backpack, he planned to walk to Key West, the farthest destination on his map. But a vicious roadside stabbing has interrupted Alan’s trek and robbed him of his one source of solace: the ability to walk.

Homeless and facing months of difficult recovery, Alan has nowhere to turn—until a mysterious woman enters his life and invites him into her home. Generous and kind, Angel seems almost too good to be true, but all is not as it appears. Alan soon realizes that before he can return to his own journey, he must first help Angel with hers.

From one of America’s most beloved and bestselling storytellers comes an astonishing tale of life and death, love and second chances, and why sometimes the best way to heal your own suffering is by helping to heal someone else’s.Inspiring, moving, and full of wisdom, Miles to Go picks up where the bestseller The Walk left off, continuing the unforgettable series about one man’s unrelenting search for hope.