Night Road

Night Road
By: Kristin Hannah

This is a hard book for me to review. I read it and then read some other reviews and see that people either loved it or dismissed it. And I can see both sides.

Was the book too long and have some unnecessary details and descriptions? Yep. Were the characters likable? Not really. Were parts of the stories unbelievable and unrealistic? In my opinion, yes.

But did the book capture my attention, keep my interest and evoke emotion? Absolutely.

The story is a tangled mess of complicated emotions. From what I gathered from the dedication of the book, I would agree with others who think the author intended for us to like Jude, the "helicopter" mom (highly understated adjective for this character). I felt a lot of judgment and frustration with her parenting and her behavior after the accident. But at the same time, I've never experienced depression or such severe grief so I can't claim her behavior was over the top or inaccurate. As a mother, reading the chapters surrounding the accident and the death of one of the kids was especially hard- you can't read about someone else's loss without putting yourself in their shoes. Losing a child is an ongoing fear of being a parent and to have it realized is unimaginable.

Add to all those emotions the processing of the character and writing choices of the author. I had my own annoyances- the nicknames the characters used for each other (I'm into nicknames and the ones she chose were terrible), the passivity of the husband and Jude's dysfunctional position of being king of the house and controller of the family (even the ending was tainted by the fact that she was the hinge on which everything was pinned), the imaginary friend bit (tacky and overplayed), and just the general dialogue and thoughts of the teenagers (I've become more critical of YA books that portray teens as more mature than they should or with unrealistic dialogue).

However cliché the setting and characters, however 'unbelievable' the story, I can't deny that I was drawn in and largely enjoyed reading it. At some point I have to realize the author had a specific story she wanted to tell and she chose everything for a reason; the reason wasn't because she wanted to depict an exact replica of a historical event, but because she wanted to explore the fears of a mother of teenagers realized and how the consequences could change their lives. And it doesn't matter if we like how it happened, it's the story she wanted to tell. (And as I'm writing this I realize that I haven't thought this way with other books I've read and it seems inconsistent. But my feelings are allowed to change, so sue me.)

In this circumstance I felt that the story held my interest and tapped my emotions enough to overlook the things other reviewers were unable to. And bonus: it provided an opportunity for my husband and I to discuss unlikely hypothetical situations we could experience in 15+ years, ha.

I would still think most people will enjoy reading it, but thumbs down for some poor choices in characters/writing.