Where the Forest Meets the Stars

Product Information

One night her solitude is broken by the appearance of a barefoot young girl dressed in dirty clothes, who has bruises on her body. The girl claims to be an alien from the distant planet Hetrayeh, and she calls herself Ursa Major. She says that she is on her own type of graduate study, and can return to home only after she witnesses five miracles. (It's up to her to determine what constitutes a miracle.)

Where the Forest Meets the Stars is Glendy Vanderah’s debut novel. I will certainly be keeping an eye out for another book! I cannot wait to see what she writes next! My Favorite Passages from Where the Forest Meets the Stars Did the inclusion of Shakespearean characters help you see the story in new ways? What is the significance of Gabe telling Ursa she positively influenced the fates of the kittens Juliet and Hamlet?Joanna Teale is a graduate student working on her doctorate in Biology. She has settled for the summer in the beautiful woodlands and streams of rural Illinois. She is studying the nesting habits and success or fail of the local birds nesting habits, journaling their movements extensively. She is only a few weeks into renting her small home when a girl of about nine appears at dusk from the woods. She is barefoot, dirty and clothed in only pajamas. No matter how many times Joe questions her, she insists that she’s from a planet far away and has come down to witness five miracles. Only then will she return to the Pinwheel Galaxy. Jo is a solitary woman who is dealing with a double dose of grief after losing her mother and being diagnosed with breast cancer. She knows that she should call the police and get them involved but every time she attempts this the little girl, now called Ursa, runs away.

I can usually easily figure things out about a story, but this was one that truly kept me switching what I believed was going on, and I could easily go with either one after finishing the story. The classification is what will satisfy my view on which. Or not, if I choose. lol The author does do a good job in making me wonder whether the little girl is, indeed, an alien – such potential here – though the child is too often a bratty little whiner. Okay. I listened to this book, and that may have been the way the narrator read chose to read it. She also made the female lead too argumentative at times, perhaps in an effort to create drama. Male voices sound identical. Female voices are all ballsy, apparently to distinguish them from the resonance of the main character, whose voice was lovely. How did the word "changeling" in the first sentence affect how you thought about the girl and the coming story? Why do you think the author used this particular word?

Advance Praise

As the summer draws to a close and all of their lives approach a crossroads, one night will change everything. It will put all of them in danger and expose the lies they've been telling themselves, and threaten to destroy the fragile trio they have built, even if it's built on a dream or a fantasy. We know that something will happen to reveal Ursa’s story but it is much more tragic and terrifying than could be imagined! I wanted to make sure I highlighted a few of the darker elements of the book. These elements included accidents, infidelity, prostitution, child abuse, drugs, cancer, depression, and murder. Many of these things happened only briefly in the narrative. Having read True Places by Sonja Yoerg, just prior to this, a story in which there is another otherworldly girl as a main character, I was a bit worried that this would pale in comparison, but I was happy enough to stay a little longer in this world where the answers aren’t always a few keystrokes away.

If I could just rate the first 30% of this novel I would have given this 4 stars. Sadly, I found the depiction of depression and social anxiety to be lousy and, worse still, I thought that the romantic relationship between the two leads is...worrisome. Soon, Jo and her neighbor, a man named Gabe that struggles with agoraphobia and depression, become tangled up in the situation. They both know that is it wrong to let Ursa stay with them, but they both feel very protective of her as well. They try to bring the authorities in, but Ursa runs away and the cop makes Jo question if forcing her to return would be safe.

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I grabbed this as an kindle first read, and I'm sorry to say that it was kind of trash. Worse yet, it didn't start out trash, so I unfortunately wasted a lot more time than I would have trying to speed read the end. I have no idea what book everyone else is reviewing with their five stars, and I'm mad about that, too. Y'all need higher standards, and you can fight me on that, if you like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Did you agree with Jo when she said the purpose of Ursa’s five miracles was to give her time to find a new home? I'm not a terribly fast reader - mainly because I can be so easily distracted by other things grabbing for my attention - but this is one of those rare books for me that I just didn't want to put down. For me, there were no dull spots to get through - it kept me engaged start to finish. A wonderful first effort by this author - I'm looking forward to seeing what's next from her. How did the word ‘changeling’ in the first sentence affect how you thought about the girl and the coming story? Why do you think the author used this particular word?

This story is really beautiful. I had never heard of this book before, but somebody left a comment on one of my YouTube videos comparing this book to The Humans by Matt Haig (aka one of my favorite books ever), so I immediately wanted to read it. This book is my favorite kind of genre: contemporary with a small sci-fi element to it. It follows this woman named Jo, who recently lost her mother to cancer, and has also recently beat her own battle with cancer when a little girl shows up on her property in dirty clothes and claims to be an alien sent from the stars. She claims that she needs to witness five miracles before she can return home. Jo gets to know her neighbor, Gabriel, and Ursa manages to charm her way into both of their hearts. Gabe has his own scars, none that you can see, but lots that he has been dealing with for many years. He had a fractured family life and many emotional issues to deal with including depression and the inability to interact with or trust others. Despite their differences, Jo and Gabe are drawn to each other and we watch as they both learn to trust again and have hope. Joanna Teale is a survivor. She’s battled breast cancer, leaving her disfigured and unable to have children, and is still grieving the death of her mother. She turns her energy and dedication to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, renting a cabin for the summer that’s close to her work.

In Where the Forest Meets the Stars, Glendy Vanderah weaves a deft and poignant story with well-drawn characters, including clever Ursa. With an unexpected and heart-racing climax, readers will wait breathlessly to find out what happens. A beautiful story of love, resilience, and the power of second chances.” —Susie Orman Schnall, award-winning author of The Subway Girls Try Star Wars shapes next time,” Jo told the nurse. My Final Thoughts on Where the Forest Meets the Stars atrocious. Not the kind that’s creative and uses a variety of (easy to understand) sentence structures—thus, somewhat okay to be simplistic. However, it’s the shallow, unimaginative, and repetitious kind. Especially when it comes to the dialogues. The direct/reported speech is truly awful. Discuss the different ways the word "fate" is used throughout the book. Did you believe the events in this story were mostly caused by accidental twists of fate? How do you think Jo, Gabe, and Ursa would each answer that question? Where the Forest Meets the Stars is a story of friendship and the power of healing through friends. The writing is straight forward, not a spare word, easy-to-read, and so full of heart, all you are left with is hope in the end, and who doesn’t want to be left with that?