Book Review: Wenny Has Wings by Janet Lee Carey

Title: Wenny Has Wings

Author: Janet Lee Carey

Genre: Middle Grade Realistic Fiction

Number of Pages: 240

Rating: C+

Recommended?: No

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Will, the protagonist of Wenny Has Wings, is severely injured in a road accident that kills his little sister. He dies for a short period of time but the EMTs manage to revive him, leaving with memories of a near-death experience when he flew through a tunnel of light with his sister (the titular Winny.)

Now that his parents have been torn apart by the experience and being at home with them is almost unbearable, he copes by writing letters to Wenny and using them to express his anger, grief, and confusion at being left behind. I gave this book a C+ and a ‘would not recommend’ but I don’t actively think it’s poorly written. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

I’m not religious at all (I’m not totally resistant to the idea that there’s something more out there than what humans can normally perceive, but I don’t think peoples’ ideas of a higher power make sense.) I feel like a Christian would get more out of this book than I did, because it has a lot of talk about things like God and angels that I’m very skeptical of.

It was also very sentimental and even though the subject matter was undoubtedly tragic, I wasn’t emotionally affected by it. You knew the book had to end with some kind of closure for the parents and Will but that closure seemed way too abrupt to me. There weren’t really any surprises. It was a mildly entertaining, quick read but not anything I think will stay with me for a long time.