Where the Forest Meets the Stars

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah is the March selection for Books & Beer Club. Genre... fantasy. What's interesting is that when it wasn't available in the libraries I have access to and I went to check the price of the book on Amazon, I discovered, much to my dismay, that I'd purchased the kindle version in 2019. I hadn't read it yet. Maybe it was an Amazon Prime (free) First Read selection?

The story of Where the Forest Meets the Stars was pretty predictable. But I read on to discover where exactly Ursa came from. The basic story is that Joanna, recovering from breast cancer and the loss of her mother, is spending the summer pretty isolated doing graduate research work in rural southern Illinois. She's trying to bring herself back to the world, but in a pretty solitary fashion. At first, her only outside contact is Egg Man at the end of her road from whom she buys her eggs and shopkeepers. She is in contact with her best friend/roommate back at the University who makes fun of her for being in redneck area.

Her solitude is broken when a girl shows up on the property where Jo is living. The girl calls herself Ursa and says she's come down from the stars to visit Earth and that she won't be able to return to the stars until she witnesses five miracles. Jo makes some attempts to figure out where Ursa has come from and to help the girl. Each time the authorities are involved, Ursa runs off. Jo's questions about where she's come from and why she's running grow larger and larger.

Eventually, Egg Man, Gabe, Jo's nearby neighbor, becomes involved in the mystery that he and Jo continue to try to solve. Gabe is almost as big a mystery to Jo as Ursa is.

As the story goes, the threesome form connections but get few answers. Their individual futures are in question as Jo prepares to return to the University for the academic year. Will they get the answers they need before the summer is over?

Of course I'm not going to tell you that. That would be spoiling it. The book was a pleasant read, but after much thought, I revised my 4-star rating to a 3-star rating on Goodreads. There were too things, large and small, in the book that I didn't feel were dealt with properly. And a couple of things that just made no sense.

Would I recommend it? Probably not. But I anxious to discuss this with the book club in a few weeks. This is so, so very different from the types of books that this book group typically reads. I can almost predict the reactions of several members of the club. Should be fun!