This I Know
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4.4 • 19 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A luminous novel of a powerfully intuitive young girl’s coming-of-age in a small, Midwest town in the late 1960s.
Eleven-year-old Grace Carter has a talent for hiding things. She’s had plenty of practice, burying thoughts and feelings that might anger her strict Evangelical pastor father, and concealing the deep intuition she carries inside. The Knowing, as Grace calls it, offers glimpses of people’s pasts and futures. It enables her to see into the depth of her mother’s sadness, and even allows Grace to talk to Isaac, her twin brother who died at birth. To her wise, loving Aunt Pearl, the Knowing is a family gift; to her daddy, it’s close to witchcraft.
Grace can’t see into someone’s thoughts without their permission. But it doesn’t take her special talent to know that her small community is harboring its share of secrets. A young girl has gone missing. Within Grace’s own family too, the cracks are widening, as her sisters Hope, Joy, and Chastity enjoy the normal life that eludes Grace. It’s Grace’s kinship with other outsiders that keeps her afloat—Lyle, a gentle, homeless man, and Lola, a free-spirited new girl at school. But when her mother lapses into deep depression after bringing home a new baby, Grace will face a life-changing choice—ignore her gift and become the obedient daughter her father demands, or find the courage to make herself heard, even if it means standing apart…
“A heartfelt and beautifully crafted coming-of-age debut…Don't miss this one.”—Lesley Kagen, New York Times bestselling author
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this ominous, morally charged novel from Edwards (Lost in Transplantation), a girl must choose between abiding by her strict father's expectations or embracing her gift of premonition. Grace Carter is a free-spirited 11-year-old with a big heart who feels at odds with her evangelical father and his restrictive rules. Their main point of contention is Grace's power, "the Knowing," which allows her to read minds and receive premonitions about, among other things, accidents that are soon to occur. When Grace's mother falls into extreme postpartum depression after the near-death of her newborn daughter, Grace struggles to decide between using her gift to inform her family of a future tragedy and seeking the approval of her father, who believes the Knowing to be the work of the devil. The story is driven by the charged family dynamics and Grace's charming voice, so much so that Grace's premonitions, despite their centrality to the plot, feel like a distraction; the novel is most enchanting when Grace's power is not the central focus, and the subtle tensions between family members are foregrounded. Edwards's moving portrait of a family at a crossroads is obscured and undermined by its supernatural elements.
