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The Girl Who Came Back to Life
The Girl Who Came Back to Life
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After her parents die, 12-year-old Sophie refuses to release their spirits. Instead, she resolves to travel to the City of the Dead to bring her mother and father’s spirits back home with her.
Taking the long pilgrimage north with her gruff & distant grandmother—by train, by foot, by boat; over ruined mountains and plains and oceans—Sophie struggles to return what death stole from her.
Yet the journey offers her many hard, unexpected lessons—what to hold on to, when to let go, and who she must truly bring back to life.
Readers say...
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A little book with a big heart
Its quiet charm makes it an easy read, but there
is plenty of complexity beneath the surface. Sophie’s journey will have readers
contemplating life, death, betrayal, forgiveness, love, pain, kindness,
perseverance, and the power of storytelling. Staufenberg’s beautifully written
fairytale is as insightful as it is enjoyable. -
A story of what a little girl goes through after losing her parents in death.
It tells of the grief and the pain that she felt and how she dealt with knowing that she would never see them again. It tells of the long dark road that she went down to deal with their death and of the road that she traveled on so that she could find a new life for herself without them in it. The Girl Who Came Back to Life is a story that will grab a hold of you right from the first word and it will keep holding on to you long after you have read the last word.
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Book Club Pick
Is this book all gloom? No. Its tone and descriptive writing reached out to me like few books have. While its focus may be heavy, it shows you a girl who endures everything she possibly can because she has one goal in mind - to set her parents free. Ultimately, to set herself free. There is no charming prince or Elsa like princess but there's a whole lot of heart, strength and courage where Sophie is concerned and I think that's something a child must witness growing up. Would I recommend this read? In a heartbeat. As a parent, The Girl Who Came Back to Life was a masterpiece.
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An Amazing Journey
Right from the very first page, The Girl Who Came Back to Life held me captive. I read it all in one sitting..well, okay, I did have to get up a couple of times, but you know what I mean. Once I started, I didn't finish until I hit The End. Reading The Girl Who Came Back to Life makes you feel as if you are in a different land. A fairytale land. In fact, the subheading of the book is "A Fairytale." But it's not a land with fairies or princesses or pirates. It's a land of sadness, mourning, and joy. I loved this book and highly recommend it. You really have to read it yourself to experience the amazingness of it all.
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Modern Day Fairytale For The Ages
Fairytales are normally stories that raise the heart and spirits. I was kind of glad that this story was different than that. It was definitely a story that resonated with me even after I had finished it. The author is amazing and made me get inside the pages as I read this book. Everything was spelled out so perfectly that I could vividly imagine everything that was going on with the characters. Kudos to the author for making this a read that I will remember forever and re-read over and over again!
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A Fine Fairy Tale
The Girl Who Came Back to Life reminded me so much of the
old fairy tales I devoured as a little girl. It’s told almost from a narrator’s
POV, which I wasn’t sure I’d like at first, but as I progressed in the story, I found the style worked. I expected a life lesson (as so often reflected in those old fairy tales by Andersen and Grimm), and I wasn’t disappointed. Sophie’s emotional journey is beautiful. I loved what she learns about her grandmother, the world, and herself. The Girl Who Came Back to Life is a quick, easy, touching read. If you love old-time fairy tales with a touch of magic, give this one a try. It made me get all teary-eyed a couple times (no easy task), so I’m five-starring. -
My new favorite fairytale! <3
The Girl Who Came Back To Life on is a fairytale for all ages. It's magical without having any magic at all. It's beautiful, meaningful and really amazing. The character of Sophie is intelligent, strong and real and I absolutely loved her. She was the sweetest fairytale heroine I ever met! I'm so so glad I got a chance to read this beautiful fairytale. To the author (if he ever reads this): The Girl Who Came Back To Life made it to my favorites list! And not just that, it has become my favorite fairytale too! <3
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Such a great book!
Losing someone is a very long journey indeed. I was fascinated reading all about Sophie's journey. It was a fairytale. But not in the traditional sense. This was a fairytale of sadness & numbness but also of love & joy. Of letting go and saying goodbye. But also saying hello to the life left to live. The book was so well-written and interesting. It was unlike anything I have read and I enjoyed it immensely. I highly recommend it.
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Wonderful
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this book. I never expected to get drawn into Sophie's world, to feel so sad for her, to get angry at her or even, at times, to hate her, then grow to love her. As her character changed and grew her actions and circumstances brought out memories and feelings from my own life. Craig Staufenberg's storytelling never lagged. I wanted to push on with Sophie's adventure, yet I didn't want the story to end.
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A dreamlike quality to a fantastically well-written story
The cover had me hooked. Then I read the book. And then I was dumbfounded. Talk about a talent for words. Despite the sadness and the difficult situation the book portrays, Craig Staufenberg weaves scenes into your imagination till you cannot help but crawl into dark emotions that the characters feel. There is a dreamlike quality to the story, and I for one ended each chapter with more compliments. The best part of this book is in the tiny details we would sometimes overlook in real life. A touch, a tear, the afterthought ... all of it comes together fantastically. A well-written book with so many emotions from start to finish.
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A strange but delightful tale
This story entertains even as it provokes thought as to where the teller of this tale is taking you. A mental image of a village in a foreign land - but which land? What next'? How cruel people are; how kind people are. Quite a story that will keep you musing in the quiet time just before falling to sleep. A good read.
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Truly beautiful
I tend to write lengthy reviews. I can go on and on for ages. This book? It's a one word review - beautiful. No, make that two words - truly beautiful One of the most sublime pieces of writing I've had the pleasure of encountering. This has become one of those books that will always have a place in my home.
The story behind the story
Sophie started out as a character named “The Young Orphan” who was the heroine of a very short novella I wrote in college.
That book involved a quest for the fountain of youth. It contained a story of the fountain of youth that I found within a very old book in my college’s library. I was never able to find that book, nor find that version of the story of the fountain of youth, again. It always happens like that.
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I knew the novella I wrote wasn’t quite “it” and that this story hadn’t been told properly, but I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I tried an illustrated version. That wasn’t it. I tried a graphic novel version. Nope. I tried a few variations on the story, nothing clicked.
Eventually I took a break — from this story, and from writing altogether. In my mid-to-late 20s I wanted to see who I was if I wasn’t writing or telling stories or doing anything creative. I took about a year and a half off from it all and traveled, moved, fell in love, all of those things.
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It was winter 2013 when, one day, I had a little feeling, “I think I’ll write today”. That was it.
I sat down in a café that morning, and I wrote for about five or six hours. I began to write Sophie’s story, the book that would become The Girl Who Came Back to Life. I had no intention to do this, the story just started flowing through. And the story, and world, and characters, and this main character Sophie, were all different than they had ever been before, yet I knew it was true this time.
The writing exhausted me for the day. The next morning, the same thing happened. Another great flood of hours of writing, and more of the book came through. This happened again and again.
I wrote all of The Girl Who Came Back to Life in about one week, just like this. It was all I did that week — all I could do was just sit in that café for four, five, six hours each morning and just write, write, write, until it all came through, and out, and Sophie completed her journey.
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I’ve never had a creative experience like that — so magical and uncontained and all-consuming — and I doubt I ever will again. That’s ok. Once is more than most people get.
That wildness lives in the writing. Some editors tried to take it out. At times I tried to tame it myself, all on my own, largely due to my insecurities as a young man. Thankfully Sophie won the day, and I let her story be told the way she let it be written — like rushing water.
Dana, who performed the audiobook, described the story like an ocean, each chapter a new wave — woosh, woosh, woosh. That was the feeling of the rhythm to her. She was an orphan as well, like Sophie. Dana is no longer with us, and I hope she, and those who loved her, have found peace.
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This is a book about death. It’s also a book about loss of all kinds, which means it’s a book about love. My heart beats through it, raw and aching, and when I re-read it, I feel again what I felt in those mornings I wrote it. I hope that others can read it, and feel that magic as well, and find whatever meaning they need to help them through whatever troubles they are journeying through.
-Craig