The Tale of Narsi DeFleur

by C.A. Rogers

A wicked stepfather and a mother that can't be bothered with children? A recipe for disaster. But their oppression and apathy and lack of love were not enough to kill Narsi's feisty personality, evident from the day she came into being.

216 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2013

Reviews

[Rodney Wilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Tale of Narsi DeFleur feels very much like the story you'd get if C.S. Lewis wrote his Chronicles from the perspective of a Narnia-less Susan Pevensie. A story that seems to take place entirely in the pre-Prince Charming phase of fairy tale. The story C.A. Rogers tells us is one of despair and tragic brokenness, with the flitting rays of hope always on the fringe of the narrative's emotional valleys. Narsi's tragedies hit all the more devastatingly because they are so readily familiar. The shape and size of her struggles may differ from those of the reader, but the color of her sorrow - the sehnsucht threading the book up to its absolutely beautiful climax - is one unmistakeably common among the canvas of humanity.

The story Rogers tells is a recognizably difficult one, but as dark and dismal as Narsi's tale may be, her ending casts a transcendent warmth and hope on both her own travails and those of the reader. There is hope, and this hope will never remove Himself from us, though dark the days may seem.

[Julia Simpson-Urrutia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is dark and funny. 90% is absolutely fabulous. I give it two thumbs up as a must-read. The theme is the dysfunctional childhood family and how the female protagonist (who sees the irony in everything and who is endearingly honest) coped. Ironically there is much that feels like a fantasy in this, and that is due to the author's writing style. As Rodney Wilder writes, you get the feeling of some sort of Narnia. The ending, only a question of a couple of pages really, shifts abruptly from the tone of the rest of the book.

The end of the book is all of a sudden preachy. I have no problem with authors having faith in a religion different than mine, but to shift the tone so suddenly and massively is a faux pas.