Leaving Montana
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Average rating4
From the Official Website... "Saying that Benjamin Sean Quinn had "anger issues" was an understatement. For those who knew him for the shortest amount of time, his life was in order: He was physically fit, had a great job which provided him a house in the suburbs and the material things he desired, a loving, monogamous relationship, two happy, healthy daughters and an established circle of friends. In all accounts, his life seemed perfect. But to those who knew him the longest, they knew he was an idle grenade, waiting for someone to pull the pin. For decades, Ben did his best to conquer his demons; to suppress the anger he accumulated towards his parents, Carmella and Sean, throughout their tumultuous marriage. Ben was their only child; forced to witness and experience things that most adults couldn't even try to handle. He could not escape them or the anger, and no matter how hard he tried, as he matured, it became a part of him. Ben strived to end the toxic cycle and avoid adopting their pattern as part of his own life. By the time he reached his early thirties, he finally seemed to have it all under control. Then Ben's father told him a "secret." One left in Montana when he and Carmella were stationed there forty years earlier. It would exhume the painful memories and suppressed anger that Ben had been avoiding for years and force him to relive his past in order to face his future. Today Benjamin Sean Quinn boards a plane to Billings, Montana. It was time to face the secret head on and let go of the anger that silently ruled his life. It would be the boldest move he ever made, ultimately changing his life and the lives of those around him."
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This was yet another surprisingly good book from early reviewers. As usual, I won't bother with a summary especially since the description is already pretty good.
The story is basically narrated on two different levels in time which are slowly being merged into the current day. Especially in the beginning, this is done masterfully and effortlessly. It's getting slightly harder to understand towards the end of the book when the time frames are getting nearer to each other but it's still very well done.
There are a few minor issues that make me subtract one star: - There are several occurrences of the nowadays common mistake of using “[I] could care less” when it actually should be “[I] could not care less”, e. g. “He acted as if he could care less, but the fact was he did.” (Chapter 5) - A few times, when it should be “then” the author's mistakenly using the comparative “than” instead. - Fairly regularly, there are instances of a missing comma.
These minor issues, though, hardly ever really have an impact on the enjoyment of the book as a whole. It's brilliantly written, I can relate to almost all characters which are believable, well fleshed out and fitting extremely well into the narration.
In contrast to another reviewer, I believe the book has exactly the right size - it never became long-winded for me and everything told was on some level important to the story. I never grew bored or disinterested.
If and when there's a second edition with the minor issues I pointed out fixed, this could become an almost flawless gem.
