What I’m Currently Reading

Currently, I am reading The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. I have only read one other book by her so I am beginning to learn about her style of writing. I read the Nightingale by Hannah and it was fairly good, but some parts were hard to read. I honestly feel the same way with The Great Alone because it seems like one thing just happens after the next and so forth.

Here’s my review on The Great Alone:

If I were to compare this book to any other book, which I try not to do very often, I would compare it to The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Both seem to be about families that do not have much, but have parents with struggles such as addiction to alcohol and drugs. I would say the story lines are very different though, In The Great Alone, the story is set in Alaska in the wild where it’s hard for people to survive. In the book, Hannah says that “survival, it seemed, could hinge on the smallest thing” (Pg. 89). She talks about how they had to catch their own food and essentially rebuild their own homestead in Alaska where they essentially go to escape the trials the father has faced.

One of the main characters, Leni, makes friends with a boy named Matthew. As friends, they are able to move forward past some hard trials. The relationship between the too is very caring which is much needed for both of them.

Overall, I left this book feeling a little sad and thought about it frequently as I was reading and afterwords as well. I would give this book 4 stars because the book was very unexpected as a reader going into it with no knowledge prior to reading. It was creative and thoughtful. The only thing about it was I didn’t feel like it was completely realistic. Like that many bad things doesn’t seem to happen to one story, however, I may be totally wrong on that and it’s okay. I really enjoyed this book even though it had some hard and sad parts to read. It makes me see what some people really go through in everyday life.