"Gratitude" is kind of a hip word these days, but it happens to be a concept I fully cling to. There is always something beautiful in our lives to be grateful for and being completely mindful of that impacts us deeply.

"A House In The Sky", by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett is the story of 19-year-old Amanda who left Alberta (Canada) to travel some of the most dangerous places in the world. She became a TV reporter in various war zones and eventually found an assignment in Somalia.

Then she gets abducted. This is her real-life story.

In, "A House In The Sky", we experience how the concept of gratitude carried Amanda Lindhout through her nearly 2-year experience as a prisoner of a hostile Somali group, and how impactful this change in perception was to her life.

"On days when I was really struggling, when I felt the pressure in my mind moving again toward a snapping point, the voice posed questions. It said, in this exact moment, are you okay? The answer, in that exact moment, was steadying: Yes, right now I am still okay. I ran through the things I had to be thankful for - my family at home, the oxygen in my lungs.... Each time my captors threw me into that hole, I found another way to climb out. It wasn't easy - not ever, not once - but this way of thinking became my ladder, my doorway. Anywhere, anywhere, I reminded myself. I could go anywhere."

I really enjoyed this biographical novel, it presented a few different paces and shaped the character so well prior to getting to the 'meat', this 'event' that as a reader you know is coming, that by the time you get to it you already feel well acquainted with the spirit of the character.

There are many points of discussion any book club could bring up with this novel regarding PTSD, War, Risk, Politics, Religion... so much on mental health, perseverance, the need for connection and love and understanding.

Even prior to her abduction, the story of a struggling lower-income family and woman trying to find her way is one worthy of discussion.

While the authors balance showing beauty alongside the reality of being a female prisoner of an extremist Islamic group, some scenes are hard to read. The pain one feels as woman-to-woman runs deeply, no matter where you are in the world, at our basic instincts/biology I think there is a connection between all women and this is a concept explored in this title as well. hope everyone gets the chance to think about the importance of women's rights, women's lives and women's contributions to our world when we read stories like these, where we are faced with the harshness many women face and the inequalities that persist. One cannot help but cry for women lost within this world in dark houses and hidden corners of our world.

In my own discussion with others who have read this novel, it was obvious that many of us shook our heads at the decisions Amanda made along the way. So many times, it seemed she could have improved her circumstances. I had one friends comment (this friend happens to be a journalist as well), that she couldn't finish it out of frustration over some of these decisions. But even in these, to me it felt like a valuable discussion point. We are not all built the same. 

We are not all given the same skills and support as a youth to have in making decisions as an adult. We all are impacted by our early lives - however, what we learn along the way and how we succeed in becoming "happy", "grateful", and "at rest" - and in the end that is what matters. And no matter how frustrating her decisions might make us feel as a reader, the point of the story is that she survived. She persisted. She succeeded. 

3 out of 4 ❤️❤️❤️❤️ for this read.

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