By and By

When the morning comes, when all the saints of God are gathered home, we will tell the story, how we've overcome and we'll....oh sorry....I got carried away there.

What with having finished Heaven and now Sweet, Hereafter, I have gospel songs on the brain.

Of coure, the title Sweet, Hereafter is a play on words, you know? At first I thought the title was Sweet Hereafter. Like the Sweet By and By, the Heavenly Shores, the Other Side of the Jordan, The Home Up Yonder, etc. But then I looked closely at the title and realized it is Sweet COMMA Hereafter. And Sweet is Shoogy from Heaven. The book, not the place. Well I mean, Heaven, OH is where Shoogy lives. Bobby and Feather and Marley live there, too. I googled Heaven, OH and it isn't a real place. Anyway...

Shoogy has moved out of her house and into a cabin in the woods with her friend/boyfriend Curtis. Curtis has served in the Iraq War and now is supposed to go back. He goes to Hiram College where my friend Jess went! He joined the reserves to help him pay for school. Johnson comments on the war a lot in this book and I love what she has to say. When are we going to get out of there? When?