The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

OK. Just go ahead and tell yourself that life as you know it is about to be put on hold because you will be reading this book. Don't even pick it up if you have a project due or a thesis to write. Why? Because you  may only stop to eat or sleep or stretch your legs and you also may find yourself side clicking your friends who are calling you on their Smart Phones to see if you have left the planet.

And the answer to that one is "No", but you are "Not Available At This Time", so they will just have to "leave a message and you'll get back to them" as soon as you read all 543 pages. I highly recommend the paperback because when you read it in bed you don't want it to fall and hit you on your head and give you a concussion. Then you wouldn't be able to finish this book while you were in the ER recouping or possibly in a comma.

At any rate ... this novel is good. Could you tell?

You will be transported to Africa where a missionary family goes through trials and tribulations, each one separately as individuals in their togetherness as a family in the 1960's. It's hot, buggy, rainy, dry and full of natives who do not believe in Jesus. Oh no! And here you are as a young girl, a zealous father, a suffering wife who all have to come to terms with their lives in this god forsaken plot of the planet earth or be swallowed up by the jungle. Either the natives will conform or you will, by God or by shaman.

I would have caught an alligator home a.s.a.p. if I had been put in this situation.

But since you are not really there you can be glad you don't have to sleep under a mosquito net for fear of malaria or eat bugs to stave off hunger.  You can relax and keep reading about what it would be like if you were Orleanna, Ruth May, Leah, or Adah Price. You get to be in their brains but not in the patriarch's scrambled synapses, Hallelujah and Amen.

Look there's more than one yellow brick road to get to the almighty Wizard of Oz but there's no place like home. Moral of this book?

Don't go to Africa in the 1960's unless you've brought your ruby red slippers. Don't forget to have them firmly on your feet and click them three times.