Book Review: Shouting at the Rain by Linda Mullally Hunt

This is a book I read and then shared with my two then adolescent adopted daughters. It is a beautiful tale of a girl being forced to look at herself and her life in a different way than most would.

There is a lot going on in the beginning of the book. Delsie is dealing with the abandonment of her mother, her grandmother’s feelings about her daughter and husband, and Delsie has to navigate friendships on top of everything else. Our main character has to deal with a lot of things that any kid that finds themselves in the system has to. Only she is not in the system.

Delsie becomes obsessed with finding other broken and lost things, and has a need to literally “shout at the rain”. She is angry from seemingly navigating all this pain in her life alone. She has such deep feelings and it takes her meeting a new friend that also struggles with their feelings to finally open up about her own issues and seek help.

Delsie begins the book feeling alone in the world and along the way she finds she is surrounded by a supportive found family. She opens up to her grandmother about all her difficult feelings and they are able to both heal and move forward in their lives.

There are so many things out of control in our lives, just like the weather. We want to blame someone or think that there is something wrong with ourselves that has caused us so much misfortune. This book deals with so many feelings that adoptive kids go through. It is good for any child or adult, really, but adoptive kids already have so many hang ups about the way their family looks compared to everyone else. This book lets you know that you are not alone and that anger is normal and justified. It moves you through some of the grief in not having the life that you want for yourself.

It is a beautiful story of learning what is important in your life and appreciating what you have. Not in an overbearing way and definitely not in a “this is God’s plan” kind of way. This book says that life can and will be hard, but when it does look at who is there with you through it all. It may not be who you wish it was, but there will be someone in your corner.

This was an amazing story for my girls to read because it resonated so strongly with both of them. It put into words things that they had been struggling with their whole lives. It was gentle in its story telling while still being about real and horrible feelings. This was the first book that either of them had ever felt seen in the media. Since I read it with them, it opened a dialogue between us where we could talk about the main character’s feelings and actions instead of them having to talk about themselves. It was a beautiful moment for me to see what was going on inside them and for them to share with me how difficult it is to be them.