Where’d You Park Your Spaceship?

Where’d You Park Your Spaceship?
An Interplanetary Tale of Love, Loss, and Bread
Book One: Welcome to Firdus
by Rob Bell
Published by BackHouse Books 2023

Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what genre this book is, fantasy, sci-fi, fiction? And? I don’t think it really matters. The entire title allows one to anticipate that if we choose to read this book, we just might find it contains a spaceship, multiple planets, love, loss and bread… and that is enough for me!
I loved the humor, creativity, curiosity, explorative nature, and imagination that was embedded into an examination of how things are and how things could be. The speed of this book is like a track meet where we sign up to run every race — just to experience how each race or event feels in the body. There are parts that go so fast that I had to remind myself to breathe. Other parts… I read out loud just to listen to the words come off my tongue in order to keep pace with my heart.
I love how there are no quotation marks and very little “he said — she said” language used. The type style creates a rhythm of its own. I also feel very validated and seen by his use of fragments and run-on sentences — but that’s a whole other blog entry of its own.
The main character, Heen, has a whole history of people in his life — I love how Rob Bell gave space for the stories of all these people to be told and recognized their involvement in Heen’s life. I love how the book continuously holds the reader in the current present moment. There are so many characters introduced, yet it’s much too involved to keep thinking backwards to hold all the characters in the moment or the future, yet I got glimpses of where something might go by being ever so gently reminded of a specific something from the past foreshadowed — and I began to realize that everything/everyone is a foreshadow and matters.
There is so much to love about this book, but I can’t share it all here because I run the risk of spoiling the mystery. Thank you Rob Bell for “being the turtle” and allowing the reader “to be the shell” — so that readers everywhere can experience this grand adventure through print; I look forward with great anticipation to Book 2!

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BLOOD BROTHERS