Come Sunday by Isla Morley
Review by Mirah W. (mwelday)
I was drawn to Come Sunday because it is partially set in one of my favorite places, Hawaii. Come Sunday is about the trials of deep emotional loss and the toll it takes on people.
Abbe grew up in a tumultuous home in apartheid South Africa. As soon as she was able, she escaped to the United States where she eventually meets Greg. Greg becomes a minister and takes a position in Honolulu. Abbe and Greg settle into Honolulu and have a daughter, Cleo. Cleo is a strong-willed child who routinely frustrates her parents. Slowly a happy life is replaced with religious doubts and resentment over a perceived imbalance of responsibilities in the family.
When tragedy strikes and Greg and Abbe lose Cleo they are forced to face the fractures in their marriage. They each face their grief in a different way and the fracture between them grows deeper. In her attempts to move forward, Abbe goes back to South Africa and comes face to face with her family history and tries to make sense of all she’s thought was true and how all of that affects her experiences and life choices.
I was torn at times while listening to this audiobook. I had a hard time empathizing with Abbe; she came across as judgmental and hardhearted even before experiencing Cleo’s death and those characteristics were intensified after that tragedy. Hawaii wasn’t featured as prominently has I would have hoped; however, the narration was very good and the various characters’ personalities came through with the different voices used by the reader.
