*Contains Spoilers*

There are certain books that you just know whether or not they’re good. With other books, you don’t realize it’s true greatness until you’ve finished reading. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a little more complicated. Throughout the novel, you can tell that there’s something special about it. There are major points of symbolism that you have to pay attention to catch. But there’s also that feeling of confusion.

We’re taken through the lives of Johnny Wheelwright and Owen Meany. Johnny has a pretty normal background. Except that he doesn’t know who his real father is. Owen Meany, on the other hand, has many features that make him very unique. He has big ears, is much shorter than average, and has unusually higher pitched, and off, kind of voice. Yet, he is very confident, smart, and seems to know exactly where his life is headed.

At the start and throughout the first few chapters, we are reminded of how Johnny’s mother dies. Irving makes it no secret or climactic point of what happened. In a Little League baseball game, Owen Meany’s hit fatally hits Johnny’s mother, instantly killing her. There was something about that fatal hit: it was fate.

Nearly half way through the novel, I have to admit, I wasn’t liking where things were going. That’s because I didn’t know where they were going. Clear key events are repeated, obviously trying to show the reader it’s true significance. And yet, through reading it, I had this sense of confusion. I couldn’t see a clear plot. But that’s exactly why one must read an entire book before putting a definite label on it. Soon, the fog around the plot began to clear. I took more of a notice in what symbolized what. And everything began to piece together. It’s the kind of book that makes you look a couple chapters back and laugh. Laugh, because it was right there all along. I can’t say this was the perfect book, as so many claim it is. But it does hold something of great significance. Lessons of faith (not only religious) and life. Destiny and tragedy. A fatal fate.

It definitely takes a calm and patient mind to read this, which is why I plan on reading it again. To capture it’s true meaning. On AR, the book is at a level of 7.7 with a good 42 points. A fairly large amount of points- if you can capture all of it’s worth.