The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

By Heidi W. Durrow

“I’m not the color of my skin. I’m a story. One with a past and a future unwritten.”

Rachel’s father is an African-American G.I., her mother is Danish. As the only survivor of a tragedy that takes her mother, brother, and baby sister, Rachel ends up being raised by her grandmother. Her father is alive, but is absent. She does not even know where he is, only that he is stationed elsewhere.

Set in the 1980s, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is a story that explores issues surrounding the life of a biracial girl coming of age.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is told from multiple points of view and the time shifts back and forth, but I never got confused. Rachel tells of her experiences and struggles with identity in addition to the loss of her family. She refers to herself after the accident as ‘the new girl’. Her sadness and confusion comes through quite clearly.

Well told and interest holding, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is a book that gives the reader an engaging story in addition to food for thought on social issues.

This book has many adult themes and is for mature readers.

Winner of the 2008 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction

Reading Guide for The Girl Who Fell From the Sky from reading group guides.com

Author Heidi W. Durrow’s website

Issues of concern

infidelity, suicide with description of injuries, death, language, drug use, domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, violence, sex, alcoholism, child abuse, mention of absent uncle’s bisexuality, religion, discrimination, other mature themes

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