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joedeb90's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent story, and very fitting for the times we are living in.
ccopeland28's review against another edition
4.0
This was a fantastic read. It already feels like a classic - right up there with To Kill a Mocking Bird. Also, it reminds me of John Grisham's writing. So kudos to Allen Eskens - I think he has a winner sitting here.
momadvice's review against another edition
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing house for providing a review copy of this novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
“You put enough like-minded idiots in a room, and pretty soon their backward way of thinking starts to take on an air of legitimacy.”
This coming-of-age story is set in the '70's and takes on the challenges of race and identity in some really beautiful ways.
Boady lives in an all white neighborhood with his single mother. When a wealthy black family become their neighbors, they could never imagine what fast friendships they would have.
A white supremacist group is really unhappy that a black man is in charge of the town's manufacturing plant though. This anger fuels and torments the family and anyone who might associate with them.
The entire story is layered within a disappearance of Lida Poe, who was the secretary at the town's manufacturing plant. According to rumors, she left town along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. As more about the white supremacist group becomes known, Boady begins to wonder if she really did commit this crime.
Boady begins trying to uncover clues and soon realizes that everything is not as it seems.
I couldn't put this book down and highly recommend it if you are looking for a mystery to escape with.
This coming-of-age story would be perfect for a book club discussion and is the kind of read that really sticks with you.
Ordinary Grace
Where All Light Tends to Go
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
“You put enough like-minded idiots in a room, and pretty soon their backward way of thinking starts to take on an air of legitimacy.”
This coming-of-age story is set in the '70's and takes on the challenges of race and identity in some really beautiful ways.
Boady lives in an all white neighborhood with his single mother. When a wealthy black family become their neighbors, they could never imagine what fast friendships they would have.
A white supremacist group is really unhappy that a black man is in charge of the town's manufacturing plant though. This anger fuels and torments the family and anyone who might associate with them.
The entire story is layered within a disappearance of Lida Poe, who was the secretary at the town's manufacturing plant. According to rumors, she left town along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. As more about the white supremacist group becomes known, Boady begins to wonder if she really did commit this crime.
Boady begins trying to uncover clues and soon realizes that everything is not as it seems.
I couldn't put this book down and highly recommend it if you are looking for a mystery to escape with.
This coming-of-age story would be perfect for a book club discussion and is the kind of read that really sticks with you.
5 out of 5 Stars
If you like Nothing More Dangerous, you might like these titles:
Ordinary Grace
Where All Light Tends to Go
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
jen567's review against another edition
4.0
Great writing and story - can’t wait to read authors earlier work now
tanirochelle's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
4.0
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
It often seems that we are afflicted with an epidemic of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity in our public life these days, but Allen Eskens reminds us that this is not a recent development. The ignorance/stupidity movement has deep roots in our society.
He takes us back to 1976, to the little town of Jessup, Missouri and shows us life there through the eyes of fifteen-year-old Boady Sanden. Boady is a freshman in high school and has been enrolled by his mother in St. Ignatius High School, the local private Catholic school. He left behind all of his friends in the public school he had attended and he is an outcast in the new school. He is either ignored or bullied by the St. Ignatius kids.
Boady lives with his widowed mother (his father died in an accident when he was five years old) who works as bookkeeper for a drywall hanging company. They live next door to a mysterious man named Hoke who moved in about ten years before. Even living next door to him for ten years they know little about his history but he is a kind and intelligent man who serves as a kind of surrogate father to Boady, teaching him skills that he needs in life and also gently guiding him on an ethical path.
Boady and his mother and Hoke are all white and the community where they live is rife with racial hatred against black people. Jessup even has its own group of wannabe Ku Klux Klanners called CORPS (Crusaders of Racial Purity and Strength). When an African-American woman named Lida Poe who was the bookkeeper for the area's biggest employer disappears along with about one hundred and eighty thousand dollars of the company's money, the stage is set for conflict and suspicion. Moreover, when the Minneapolis headquarters of the company sends an African-American manager to sort things out at the Jessup factory, the CORPS faction is outraged.
The new manager moves with his family to Jessup and into a newly renovated Victorian house just next door to Boady and Hoke. It turns out that the family consists of parents and a son just Boady's age and, although the two boys get off to a shaky start, they soon bond as friends and become inseparable, sharing adventures in the woods adjacent to their homes. Their relationship had a To Kill a Mockingbird vibe for me with Hoke as a stand-in for Atticus Finch. (We finally learn that Hoke was a defense attorney in his previous life.)
On one of their adventures in the woods, the boys make the gruesome discovery of a body buried under a log. Lida Poe had not left town with embezzled money after all.
The story then becomes a murder mystery, which the local sheriff, an ambiguous character - is he a good guy or a bad guy? - seems not too eager to investigate. The reasons for that may have something to do with the fact that he is related to some of the CORPS members.
This is essentially a coming of age story with very relatable characters as the protagonists. It is well-written with the plot and the motives for certain characters' actions revealed slowly over time. The plot is constructed in such a way to keep the reader's interest and to keep those pages turning. It was a pleasurable reading experience. I had not read any of Allen Eskens' books before, but the man can write. My only complaint is that the plot did seem a bit derivative, but it tells an important story and reminds us of the truth of that quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
It often seems that we are afflicted with an epidemic of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity in our public life these days, but Allen Eskens reminds us that this is not a recent development. The ignorance/stupidity movement has deep roots in our society.
He takes us back to 1976, to the little town of Jessup, Missouri and shows us life there through the eyes of fifteen-year-old Boady Sanden. Boady is a freshman in high school and has been enrolled by his mother in St. Ignatius High School, the local private Catholic school. He left behind all of his friends in the public school he had attended and he is an outcast in the new school. He is either ignored or bullied by the St. Ignatius kids.
Boady lives with his widowed mother (his father died in an accident when he was five years old) who works as bookkeeper for a drywall hanging company. They live next door to a mysterious man named Hoke who moved in about ten years before. Even living next door to him for ten years they know little about his history but he is a kind and intelligent man who serves as a kind of surrogate father to Boady, teaching him skills that he needs in life and also gently guiding him on an ethical path.
Boady and his mother and Hoke are all white and the community where they live is rife with racial hatred against black people. Jessup even has its own group of wannabe Ku Klux Klanners called CORPS (Crusaders of Racial Purity and Strength). When an African-American woman named Lida Poe who was the bookkeeper for the area's biggest employer disappears along with about one hundred and eighty thousand dollars of the company's money, the stage is set for conflict and suspicion. Moreover, when the Minneapolis headquarters of the company sends an African-American manager to sort things out at the Jessup factory, the CORPS faction is outraged.
The new manager moves with his family to Jessup and into a newly renovated Victorian house just next door to Boady and Hoke. It turns out that the family consists of parents and a son just Boady's age and, although the two boys get off to a shaky start, they soon bond as friends and become inseparable, sharing adventures in the woods adjacent to their homes. Their relationship had a To Kill a Mockingbird vibe for me with Hoke as a stand-in for Atticus Finch. (We finally learn that Hoke was a defense attorney in his previous life.)
On one of their adventures in the woods, the boys make the gruesome discovery of a body buried under a log. Lida Poe had not left town with embezzled money after all.
The story then becomes a murder mystery, which the local sheriff, an ambiguous character - is he a good guy or a bad guy? - seems not too eager to investigate. The reasons for that may have something to do with the fact that he is related to some of the CORPS members.
This is essentially a coming of age story with very relatable characters as the protagonists. It is well-written with the plot and the motives for certain characters' actions revealed slowly over time. The plot is constructed in such a way to keep the reader's interest and to keep those pages turning. It was a pleasurable reading experience. I had not read any of Allen Eskens' books before, but the man can write. My only complaint is that the plot did seem a bit derivative, but it tells an important story and reminds us of the truth of that quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
tpanik's review against another edition
5.0
This is A Separate Peace (Knowles) meets To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee). Suffused with honesty, and brimming with Esken's understated prose, Chapter 36 may be one of the most thoughtfully crafted chapters present in modern fiction. This is a book to talk about, and share.
meghanboyer's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. Loved this. So beautifully written. Complicated and hard story to tell with so many facets. Bawled my eyes out honestly.
christygoldsmith's review against another edition
4.0
I loved trying to figure out where the fictional Missouri town of Jessup was located. In reality, it could be any little town in central Missouri in the 1970s, and that’s what made this book so powerful. It’s a page turner with a lightly veiled moral. There were times when I wished the author had left more unsaid—had left more of the implications lingering—but it was an excellent read regardless.
theaudioauditor's review against another edition
3.0
Audio book review.
Small town boy makes a friend from next door and discovers how awful and racist some of his neighbors are. This feels like bits of Stephen King's IT with characters like Bill Denborough, Mike Hanlon, Henry Bowers, and Butch Bowers. This author doesn't take it to the extreme that King does, but it feels familiar enough that I was drawn in and needed to keep reading. I appreciate the atmosphere, the family dynamics, the characters and their motivations. I like that they are painted in a way that is just casual and friendly, this is how it is meant to be, and the antagonists are truly causing trouble for no reason outside of their own selfish jealousy and hatred. Would recommend, but I don't think I'll ever read it again.
Small town boy makes a friend from next door and discovers how awful and racist some of his neighbors are. This feels like bits of Stephen King's IT with characters like Bill Denborough, Mike Hanlon, Henry Bowers, and Butch Bowers. This author doesn't take it to the extreme that King does, but it feels familiar enough that I was drawn in and needed to keep reading. I appreciate the atmosphere, the family dynamics, the characters and their motivations. I like that they are painted in a way that is just casual and friendly, this is how it is meant to be, and the antagonists are truly causing trouble for no reason outside of their own selfish jealousy and hatred. Would recommend, but I don't think I'll ever read it again.