Wow.
That word just comes to mind over and over, in regards to this book, along with the phrase, heart-wrenching. It’s good though - incredibly, in a makes-you-feel-things-and-think-things brilliantly good.
Upon first meeting John, he’s likable enough. He soon turns out to be sweet and the reader would have to be dead to not feel his love for Claire - and it is mutual. So the two of them have this great, comfortable thing…until tragedy strikes. Then the reader is treated to a gut-wrenching, realistic, accurate view of what happens all too often to too many people. I doubt there’s a person alive who cannot relate to this… Still, Wind puts it all so simply and so realistically, it’s like nothing i’ve ever read or am likely to read again.
Not only does he repeatedly rip out my heart and stomp all over it - and I like it somehow, so apparently I’m some kind of sadist - but he perfectly portrays a good - better than average actually- man turning into completely something different, as a result of the bulls--- that life has thrown at him. It’s fascinating to see someone on a downward spiral with such detail and realism and it made me think… you just never know what people have been through, in order to end up what/who/where they are. It prompted thinking about other things as well, annoying, hot-button issues like the medical care situation in America - but that’s a conversation for somewhere else.
Portrayal of John trying to crawl his way back into being a contributing member of society, and before that, even working to figure out whether that’s what he wanted, seems accurate. The help he receives from a brilliant doctor and even the rulings from a fair judge instill thoughts of something like, ‘This is how it should be in a perfect world… rehabilitating people, not just locking them up, necessarily.’
Point is, if you want a book that’s real and will make you think, this is the one.
If you don’t want to think but like a book that’ll give you all the feels, this is also the one. It’s well detailed with perfect continuity.
I’ve now read several very different genres in Wind’s voice and all are amazing; he has this rare, raw talent, to write anything, I think
And did I mention it’s based on a song? ‘A Better Place to Be’ by Harry Chapin, a song that’ll never be the same for me. It seems completely natural as if the book IS the song and the song IS the book. Brilliantly perfect.
ALL the stars. All of them. Wow.