Visitor

I have just finished reading The Invisible Visitor, written by Lisa Burke and I wanted to make sure to write this review as soon as I was done. This book is extremely different from anything I have ever read, which makes it a little hard to review without giving too much away, but I wanted to write down my thoughts immediately.

In The Invisible Visitor, Burke never uses everyday, obvious plot lines or dialogue to make her points. This book is full of hidden meanings and deeper messages and you really need to focus on the storyline to understand what the main character is going through.

As women, we are taught, in many cases, that our lives should progress in certain ways. Meet a man, date a man, fall in love with the man, marry, have babies, buy a house and live happily ever after. Nothing else need matter. Except that, of course other things DO matter, many events in our lives end up touching us in a very subconscious manner - especially friendships and relationships that we create in our youth. What happens in our youth certainly plays a great part in who we become as adults and more specifically how we live our lives. Nora Maloney, our main character, finds herself suffering greatly for the sins of the past.

I found myself identifying with Nora Maloney on many levels, which made this book all the more interesting to me. Nora is no longer a young girl, she is lonely and depressed and cannot find the joy in her life. Somehow, her life is not going where she wants it to go. So she decides to end it all by taking "special" pills. She does not manage to kill herself (or does she?), but rather manages to find her guardian angel - who, some could argue, is nothing more than her subconscious finally pushing through the surface, yet, Cassock certainly seems real enough.

What follows is a spiritual journey for Nora, who apparently needs to learn each and every lesson the hard way. Cassock would not be my choice for a guardian angel - and he sometimes seems downright horrible (the scene with him eating human parts was really gross), yet I found hidden messages beyond the words on the page. A lesson to be learned in every life experience.

Through a hard journey of self-discovery, Nora finally realizes why she has been so unhappy and isolated for most of her life. I will not give it away here, but suffice it to say - I understand her completely - if I had lived with those feelings all of my adult life - I would have been a mess!