Of Love & Life & Loss

Releasing Janet by Alex Banwell is a powerful and heart-wrenching contemporary Christian novel that consumed me from the start. This book is incredible. It is so good that it is hard to know just what to pick out. It is all excellent.

This is the follow-on book to Just Benny. It can be read as a stand-alone but I recommend reading the books in order for character progression, development and understanding.

Releasing Janet is such a beautiful novel. It is about love, and loss, and a family who lost their way, each living isolated lives but under the same roof. A tragic event tore the family apart. Grief and guilt set in. Everyone stopped talking. Healing halted. Life as they knew it was ripped apart. “She stole our joy, and without her, we only existed.”

It may seem strange to declare a book about loss, ‘beautiful’, but it is. The beauty comes from the love that is found in the purest of hearts – namely children – young Janet and Beth. Their zest for life is infectious and makes the reader smile.

Benny is another character who sees life very much in simplistic terms. He is a sixteen-year-old who has battled epilepsy his whole life. He knows just what he likes and just who he loves. He is a character with a huge hear. He is a gentle soul. It is beautiful to witness his interactions with, and love for, two-year-old Beth.

The focus of this book is Benny’s mother Janet. She has lived life under a cloud since aged eleven. Following a devastating event, Janet has piled guilt on herself. Her guilt has dominated her whole way of thinking and behaving. If only someone had told her the truth when she was eleven, her life would have been so mush easier. As Benny says, we must tell the truth even if it is hard.