The Belief in Angels by J. Dylan Yates

Boychik Lit Book Review - No. 26

Here’s my book review of The Belief in Angels by J. Dylan Yates.

In this novel there are two entwined stories about coping with survivor's guilt. Teenage Jules (her birthname was Julianne) and her grandfather Sam (given name, Szaja) have come through personal ordeals, she with a brilliant but an irresponsible and abusive mother, and he through the genocidal persecutions of eastern Europe in World War II. The cruelties visited on him were more overt and violent, but the psychological terror Jules must endure is just as real and emotionally damaging. Yates artfully shapes this book through meticulous detail crafted from the often mundane daily lives of these characters, along with their troubled and introspective thought processes.

Ultimately, it's a story about finding value and making meaning where there seems to be none. There are no redeeming visitations from angels, but in Jules, as in Sam, we get a glimpse of the higher self, the wise consciousness, that prevails in the human psyche.

So, The Belief in Angels may actually encourage your faith in people.

For Boychik Lit, I’m Gerald Everett Jones. My humorous novel Christmas Karma is narrated by an angel who has a weird sense of humor. As the angel observes, the quickest way to invoke the laughter of the universe is to make plans – particularly devious ones. Be sure to catch these podcasts on BoychikLit.com.