Amy Harmon – The Song of David – REVIEW + AUDIOBOOK RELEASE!

Blurb

This is David ‘Tag’ Taggert’s book, a supporting character introduced in The Law of Moses. This is a stand-alone story, but it is highly recommended that The Law of Moses be read first to avoid spoilers.

She said I was like a song. Her favorite song. A song isn’t something you can see. It’s something you feel, something you move to, something that disappears after the last note is played.

I won my first fight when I was eleven years old, and I’ve been throwing punches ever since. Fighting is the purest, truest, most elemental thing there is. Some people describe heaven as a sea of unending white. Where choirs sing and loved ones await. But for me, heaven was something else. It sounded like the bell at the beginning of a round, it tasted like adrenaline, it burned like sweat in my eyes and fire in my belly. It looked like the blur of screaming crowds and an opponent who wanted my blood.

For me, heaven was the octagon.

Until I met Millie, and heaven became something different. I became something different. I knew I loved her when I watched her stand perfectly still in the middle of a crowded room, people swarming, buzzing, slipping around her, her straight dancer’s posture unyielding, her chin high, her hands loose at her sides. No one seemed to see her at all, except for the few who squeezed past her, tossing exasperated looks at her unsmiling face. When they realized she wasn’t normal, they hurried away. Why was it that no one saw her, yet she was the first thing I saw?

If heaven was the octagon, then she was my angel at the center of it all, the girl with the power to take me down and lift me up again. The girl I wanted to fight for, the girl I wanted to claim. The girl who taught me that sometimes the biggest heroes go unsung and the most important battles are the ones we don’t think we can win.

Véleményem a könyvről

Egyszerűen nem tudok betelni ezzel az írónővel. Minden egyes könyve egyedülálló és semmihez sem hasonlítható. Valami elképesztően magával ragadóan ír és ez a történet is a szívem legmélyéig hatolt. Imádtam minden sorát és nagyon-nagyon különleges volt, akár csak a The Law of Moses, csak egy kicsit másképpen.

Ez a kötet különálló könyvként is olvasható, mégis erősen ajánlom először a The Law of Moses olvasását, hiszen ott is ismerkedünk meg a szereplőkkel. Az értékelésemet a The Law of Moses-ról itt olvashatjátok.

A könyv egyediségét főleg a felépítése adta, amely hitetlenül ötletesen van megoldva, hiszen a jelent Moses narrálja míg David szemszögét a Millinek hátrahagyott kazettákból ismerhetjük meg. (Bár napjainkban játszódik, David mégis hangkazettákon hagyja hátra üzeneteit, később kiderül, hogy miért.) Annyira csodálatos volt az ő és Amelie kapcsolata. Gyönyörűen van leírva és annyira szerettem minden egyes momentumát, ahogyan a könyvben szereplő karaktereket is.

David ‘Tag’ Taggert rendkívüli körülmények között találkozott Mosesal az előző kötetben, és bár Moses először igyekezett megszabadulni tőle, de egy idő után legjobb barátokká váltak. Ők ketten rengeteg kalandon estek át, hiszen bejárták a világot és Tag volt az, aki kimozdította Mosest a kis világából a humorával és a lehengerlő személyiségével. Tag egy elég jómódú texasi családból származik, de ő mégis azt választja életútjának, hogy otthagyja a családi bizniszt és Utahban nyit egy bárt és egy edzőtermet, ahol boxot és kevert harcművészeteket tanít, hiszen Tag maga is többszörös MMA bajnok. Millivel a saját bárjában találkozik, szintén különös körülmények között. David kapcsolata Millivel és autista öccsével nagyon-nagyon szívmelengető. Imádtam, ahogy David elmeséli a megismerkedésüket, majd a kapcsolatukat. Úgy tűnik minden jól alakul és a nagy nőcsábász végre megtalálja a nyugalmát egy aranyos lány mellett, de egyszer csak se szód se beszéd eltűnik. Egyedül a hangkazettákat hagyja hátra Millinek, amelyek folyamatosan darabkáról darabkára segítenek felfedni mi is lehet a háttérben, és hogy hová tűnt David.

Annyira szépen megírt történet volt ez is. Nagy a verseny nálam, hogy Amy Harmon csodálatos könyvei közül melyik a legeslegjobb. Eddig talán a Law of Moses vezette a sort, de ez a könyv is igazán méltó folytatása lett az előző kötetnek és szorosan ott van az élmezőnyben. Egyszerre szívbemarkoló, szívmelengető, erőteljes, inspiráló, különleges és egyedi.

My Review in English

I just can’t get enough of Amy Harmon! Every single book of her is unique and nothing to compare. Her writing style is so stunning and this story also hits me straight in the center of my chest. I loved every single line of this book. It was so special, just like The Law of Moses but in a different way. This book is a standalone, but, I highly recommend you to read The Law of Moses before reading this book. You can read my review of that book here.

Mostly the structure of the book is what made it so special. This was a really genius idea from the author, because this story was told in dual POV by Tag and Moses but we can learn David’s point of view from the tapes which he left behind for Millie (This book takes place in present days, yet David leaves his note behind in audio cassettes, later turns out why). The relationship between David “Tag” Taggert and Amelie “Millie”’ Anderson was so admirable. The author made the connection between them so beautiful, I loved every second of it and I loved the characters so much! From the first page to the last, I went through so many emotions. I smiled, I laughed, I cried, I felt devastated.

David met with Moses under unusual circumstances in The Law of Moses. Firstly Moses tried to get rid of him, but after a matter of time they became best friends. The two of them lived through a lot of adventures, they travelled around the world and David was the person who could bring out Moses from his shell with his sense of humor and charismatic personality. Tag’ has a wealthy family in Texas, although he chooses a really different way to live his life. He leaves behind the family business and he opens a bar and a gym in Utah where he teaches box and MMA fights, since he is a multiple MMA champion, too.

He meets with Millie in his own bar, under extraordinary circumstances, too. David’s relationship with Millie and her autistic brother, Henry truly captured my heart. I loved when David tells the story of how he first met with them. It seems that the womanizer finally finds his peace beside a sweet girl, but one they David disappears without a word. He leaves behind only one thing, the tapes. These tapes helps Millie to put together the answers what she craved for piece by piece and these are the key why David left.

This book was so stunning! This book was a so worthy sequel for that book and they are side by side in the leader group. This was heart-wrenching, heart-warming, special and unique at the same time. This book is inspiring, moving and it truly makes you feel.

My Favorite Quotes From the Book

“Millie told me once that the ability to devastate is what makes a song beautiful. Maybe that’s what makes life beautiful too. The ability to devastate. Maybe that’s how we know we’ve lived. How we know we’ve truly loved.”

„Sex is not the most intimate thing two lovers can do. Even when the sex is beautiful. Even when it’s perfect.” Millie drew a deep breath as if she remembered how perfect it had truly been. “The most intimate thing we can do is to allow the people we love most to see us at our worst. At our lowest. At our weakest. True intimacy happens when nothing is perfect.”

„Millie had become my favorite sight,my favorite smell,my favorite taste,my favorite sound.My favorite.”

“And I’d rather have a piece of a dream than no dream at all.”

“The things that are meant to be are the things we can’t control, the things we don’t cause, the things that happen regardless of who or what we are. Like sunsets and snow-fall and natural disasters. I’ve never believed hardship or suffering was meant to be.”

“But I watched Millie. I watched Millie because she fascinated me. She was a brand new species, an intoxicating mix of girl and enigma, familiar yet completely foreign. I’d never met anyone like her, yet I felt like I’d known her forever. And since the moment I’d looked down into her face and felt that jolt of ode-to-joy-and-holy-shit, I’d been falling, falling, falling, unable to stop myself, unable to look away, helpless to do the smart thing. And the smart thing, the kind thing would be to stay away. But no one had ever accused me of being particularly smart.”

“What she didn’t know, what she couldn’t have known was that she’d level’d me. I may have been standing next to her, but I was already falling.”

“Are you going to devastate me, David?”
“God I hope not,” I prayed.
“Too late…” I thought I heard her whisper.

SPOILER!

“You can’t see a song. You feel a song, you hear a song, you move to it. Just like I can’t see you, but I feel you, and I move toward you. When you’re with me, I feel like I glimpse a David nobody else knows is there. It’s the Song of David, and nobody else can hear it but me.”

6- Devastating -Stars

About the Author

Amy Harmon is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in several countries, truly a dream come true for a little country girl from Levan, Utah.

Amy Harmon has written eight novels – the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as The Law of Moses, The Song of David, Infinity + One, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. For updates on upcoming book releases, author posts and more, join Amy at www.authoramyharmon.com