An often enjoyable but slight shaggy dog tale that focuses on the journey, not the destination.
Polman’s (Seven Layer Cake, 2019, etc.) offbeat novel offers two alternating stories that run along parallel tracks and involve the same narrator.
In a plotline set in 2016, 56-year-old James is trying to find his dog, Kodiak, after it runs off with a pack of strays. He follows the animals on foot and finds himself far from his neighborhood with a dead cellphone, unable to call home. He winds up stopping to visit his elderly father and his adult daughter, Emma; he also encounters a host of strangers, all while tracking signs of where the pack may have gone. In the other story track, set in 1985, 25-year-old James takes a solo bike ride from Louisiana to Tennessee and back. He meets a lot of new people on the road during this journey, as well, and tests his ability to survive on his own. In both tales, James has flashbacks that build a picture of his entire life, including his relationship with his divorced parents and with Emma, who’s still struggling to overcome the trauma of a break-in in the later story. Overall, this is a fast read, and James is an engaging, likable character. The two-tiered structure helps keeps the plot moving forward, and it never dawdles too long in one place. Polman’s prose is mostly straightforward and clear, outside of his predilection for occasionally distracting punctuation and formatting; at one point, for instance, he writes, “Never a dull moment. (Mostly.) – Now THERE’S an idea for a gravestone inscription!” As quickly as these stories pass, however, they never get terribly deep. James contemplates his father’s mild drinking problem and Emma’s troubles but never comes to any compelling conclusions about either. Most strangers enter and leave his life quickly and don’t seem to have much impact on him. Also, a few sequences make little sense; during “the most terrifying experiences of the tour,” for example, younger James sees a church sign that he thinks is creepy, finds a deserted camp site, and hides from a police car for no discernible reason.
An often enjoyable but slight shaggy dog tale that focuses on the journey, not the destination.Pub Date: May 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5466-6729-2
Page Count: 298
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
