The People We Keep
Ratings15
Average rating4.2
"Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a run-down motorhome, flunking out of school, and picking up shifts at the local diner. But when April realizes she's finally had enough-enough of her selfish, absent father and barely surviving in an unfeeling town-she decides to make a break for it. Stealing a car and with only her music to keep her company, April hits the road, determined to live life on her own terms. She manages to scrape together a meaningful existence as she travels, encountering people and places she's never dreamed of, and could never imagine deserving. From lifelong friendships to tragic heartbreaks, April chronicles her journey in the beautiful music she creates as she discovers that home is with the people you choose to keep"--Publisher's description.
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Finished this a few days ago, completely forgot to review, whoops! First of all, marking a book set in the mid-90's as “historical fiction” hurts my soul in a very old-millennial way, but I think the rule of thumb for that is twenty years before the publication year, so it definitely fits, I'm just a crone. I really enjoyed this story, but I thought the pacing was just a little off - there was so much time spent on Ithaca that it seemed like the latter parts of the story didn't get as much focus/attention/development as I would've liked. This is one of my Book of the Month choices, and I hesitated on getting it because they described it as “inspirational,” which is usually code for religious, specifically Christian (sometimes specifically evangelical). Luckily, none of that here, just hurt people finding their way to each other and to making the best life they can together.
This book was a trip. Wasn't sure what to expect with it really but I'm so glad I decided to choose this as my BOTM pick (only sorry it took so long to read it). I had all the feels throughout the entirety of the book. Those feels didn't stop even as the book ended.
