Running Barefoot by Amy Harmon

  

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Clean Romance, Contemporary Fiction
Content: Clean

When Josie Jensen, an awkward 13-year-old musical prodigy crashes headlong into new-comer Samuel Yazzie, an 18-year-old Navajo boy full of anger and confusion, an unlikely friendship blooms. Josie teaches Samuel about words, music and friendship, and along the way finds a kindred spirit.

Upon graduation, Samuel abandons the sleepy, small town in search of a future and a life, leaving his young friend behind. Many years go by and Samuel returns, finding Josie in need of the very things she offered him years before. Their roles reversed, Samuel teaches Josie about life, love, and letting go.

Deeply romantic and poignant, Running Barefoot is the story of a small town girl and a Native American boy, the ties that bind them to their homes and families, and the love that gives them wings.

This was yet another book by Amy Harmon that I loved. What I love best about all her books is the emotion that comes through the writing. I can feel what the characters are feeling. I absolutely loved Samuel and Josie. I did think the first part with backstory of them as teens went on for a little too long, but I loved getting to know about them and how they met. Also, I would have liked more in the middle about Josie and her relationship with her fiance. It didn't feel as well drawn as the rest of the book. I wanted to feel the love and connection Josie felt for him more than I did. 

 

“Like a shoe that has lost its mate is never worn again, I had lost my matching part and didn't know how to run barefoot.”  

 

I liked that Samuel never crossed that line of inappropriate behavior with the much younger Josie and I could understand why he stopped writing to her once he became an adult. I could also understand why Josie would be hurt by it and not understand, but I did feel like once she was an adult herself, she should have understood and not held it against him. I could relate to Josie as a teen. In some ways, I was very much like her as a teen, but at times, Josie got on my nerves as an adult. Even so, this was such a good book. I loved how Samuel came back into her life and how they rediscovered their connection to each other, and how everything ended up.

“I clung to him like my life depended on it. Maybe it did. I hadn’t seen him for so many years, and so much had happened in my life since I had last seen his face, but at that moment I was thirteen again. Someone I had loved had returned, someone lost had come back to me, and I held him fiercely, with no intention of ever letting him go.”