Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Great Alone

Title: The Great Alone
Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4.25
Pub Date: February 6, 2018

T H R E E • W O R D S

Emotional • Layered • Atmospheric

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America's last true frontier.

Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents' passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go along, daring to hope this new land promises her family a better future.

In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the newcomers' lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt's fragile mental state deteriorates. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own.

💭 T H O U G H T S

As an avid historical fiction reader, it will come as no surprise that Kristin Hannah is a favourite author of mine. I knew The Great Alone was going to be just as hard hitting emotionally as The Nightingale, yet covering a completely different time and place. And it certainly delivered.

Hannah has an incredible gift in delivering horrific, yet beautiful stories that cut right to the heart. In this case, the lives of the Allbrights go from dark to darker. When a book can take the reader on such an emotional journey, it is the sign of a good book. And this one does that. It made me angry, it made me sad, it made me empathic, and it made think. The characterization is fantastic. In fact, the author brings Alaska to life, making it its very own character. I felt the heard reality and beauty of the wilderness, which mirrored the plot. Additionally, Hannah paints a realistic picture of the struggles of post-war America, capturing the history, the environment, and the culture of 1970s Alaska.

The relationships are another standout with one of the most genuine pictures of the unbreakable bond mother and child. My heart was with Leni and her mother through the whole story, and I could understand the internal struggles of each. Additionally, the community and family aspect were incredibly well done.

My one criticism would have to be the ending. With so much time spent getting to know the setting, the characters, and having the story sink deeply into my bones, the ending felt rushed and jumbled. Considering the build up, it simply left me feeling less than satisfied, something I am not used to with Hannah's books.

Overall, The Great Alone is a heartbreaking, yet beautiful story of life's fragility, of survival and resilience, and most importantly, of love. While I cannot say this is my favourite of her works, it still had me completely immersed and took me on a deeply emotional journey with the characters. I will continues to make me way through her backlist, and look forward to her next novel.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• Kristin Hannah devotees
• historical fiction readers
• mother/daughter trope lovers

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"In the silence, Leni wondered if one person could ever really save another, or if it was the kind of thing you had to do for yourself."

"You don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you."

"Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves."

Content Warnings

blkbookbae's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

shanbles's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

nickoliver's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I’m honestly proud of finally reading this one. It’s always been on my Goodreads TBR, but it’s never been a priority. Partly because I barely pick up historical fiction, and partly because it was almost 500 pages and that was intimidating. So the fact that I suddenly got into the mood to read this and actually did it? *pats himself on the shoulder* It did take me a while to finish it, both because it was fairly slow-paced and also just due to my depression having been really bad.

I was interested in this story particularly because of its time and place. The 1970s weren't an unknown time period for me to have as a setting, but Alaska in the 1970s? Or Alaska in general, even? I was really excited to read more about that time in history, especially the way Hannah portrayed the post-Vietnam War atmosphere in the US.

I have to say I loved Alaska in this book, but it did leave me with some questions. It made it seem like no one in Alaska has electricity or plumbing or wants to be a part of civilization, but ... surely, there are bigger cities up there? So did Leni just talk about her experience in that remote part of the state she was in and it just sounded like she was talking about all of Alaska, or was Alaska truly like this back in the 70s? Because Alaska is huge, and the way it was described made it seem fairly homogeneous, as if it was all the same untameable wilderness.

(Though I loved it that I was pretty much shown and explained why the majority of Alaskans are Republicans. Literally everybody in this book sans Leni, Mr. Walker, and Large Marge (and possibly Leni’s mother, but not sure about that one) would’ve voted for Trump.)

The plot itself made me very nervous at first, because I had no idea where it was going to go. Like, with The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, I knew that it was going to be about WWII, and I could adjust my expectations (and waterworks) accordingly. But here, I didn’t know where the plot would take me, because all I knew going into it was that it was about a Vietnam veteran who wasn’t easy to be around and who took his wife and daughter to live in the isolated wilderness of Alaska, which worsened his condition.

And when I tell you it was painful. It was really hard to read, because the characters made me go through a very emotional rollercoaster. I was constantly extremely angry at Leni’s parents, but at the same time, I felt like I couldn’t really criticise them? For one, her dad was a POW and was dealing with untreated PTSD, so many issues he had made perfect sense. For example, I understood why he wanted to keep his family apart from the rest of the world (he believed WWIII was right around the corner), or why he didn’t do well with enclosed spaces and nothing to do. Secondly, I also understood why Leni’s mother didn’t leave him, despite the fact that being without him would’ve made her and Leni’s life so much easier. Because Leni’s father had sought Cora out when she was a literal child - I think sixteen or seventeen? - and he was twenty-five. So she was obviously taken advantage of. And of course, it isn't always easy to leave an abusive relationship, especially if you, like Cora, still have great memories of the good, pre-war times, and I didn't want to stand there and criticise Cora for staying by Ernt's side.

Also, Hannah did an amazing job at writing a toxic, unhealthy relationship. The way Leni’s parents weren’t good for each other, yet weren’t able to actually leave the other one? The way Leni suffered from it? Absolutely heartbreaking, but very well done. I also have to say I did really appreciate that at no point in the book did Hannah try to make it seem like what they had was something you’d want for yourself.

Nevertheless, I often found myself being angry, especially at Leni’s father and especially the further into the book I got. While I started out feeling slightly sympathetic towards him, that feeling started to vanish more and more. The way he acted in their town, as if he’d been a part of it his whole life and everyone would share his feelings and opinions; the way he hated Tom Walker just because he was richer (but not rich in the way he kept saying); the way he made Leni’s life harder just because she had the audacity to love Tom Walker’s son; the way he hit his wife and excused it by saying his “love for her was just too big”; the way he never even tried to be better and just kept making excuses for his behaviour. Leni and her mother had to live in constant fear, and the most heartbreaking part of that was the fact that Leni’s father thought he was protecting his family from the rest of the world, when in reality, the only one they needed to be protected from was him.

Leni’s mother was also infuriating. Like I said, I get that she was too young when she got with him, and that their love was poisonous and toxic, but she kept putting her love for her husband before the safety of her daughter - hell, before everything concerning her daughter. And she never put her daughter first

until the moment her father hit her for the first time. Like, I’m glad she finally put her foot down! But why not until this late? Leni could’ve used her help years earlier.

The romance in this book was, in a word, absolutely heartbreaking. Leni and Matthew met when she started school in Alaska, so when she was thirteen. They were just friends at first, and I really adored them together a lot. Their love story was filled with a lot of tragedies and they didn't have it easy, and many of the things that happened left me almost in disbelief. I was really invested in their story after a certain point and couldn't stop reading.

I do have to admit that there were some scenes that made me angry at Leni - she acted really stupid in the face of love sometimes (for example, kept sneaking out to meet Matthew when her dad wasn’t home instead of waiting until college and risking her literal life) -, but at the end of the day, that was probably realistic. She was a teenager with hormones, after all.

Then, quickly the few negative things that made me not give it 5 stars in the end.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Black rep in the book. There were some racists, and the Black woman in this book, Large Marge (who was also kind of the stereotypical strong woman who wasn’t to be weak and intimidated), was never defended against or said anything about it. The racist thing that was being said wasn't even addressed, and I have to admit, it was hard sometimes to believe in the town's sense of community when I knew how some of them thought about Black people.
There were also quite a few Native Americans in the book, and I did like them, even if their description sometimes felt a bit clumsy. I just wished there would’ve been more talk about colonization and what happened to those Natives, though I guess it’s probably realistic that they didn’t mention that. I mean, Americans barely learn about that in school now, never mind back in the 70s at a school with less than ten students.

I also read some reviews that criticised the way Hannah handled Vietnam vets. It kind of fed into this stereotype of veterans with PTSD always being violent and lashing out at their families, without there being much depth into the psyche of it. Like, it’s not like it was a book about a POW who genuinely tried to overcome his trauma; he just festered in it. And I can see how that could be frustrating to read, especially if you or a loved one is a vet. Personally, I didn’t mind it, mostly because I feel like it was realistic? And vets are often treated horribly in terms of their PTSD, so it didn’t feel that frustrating that Leni’s father was never seen in therapy or something.

This book did definitely kind of put me into the mood to read more historical fiction, and also more of Kristin Hannah! I might also re-read “The Nightingale” one day. We’ll see. Overall, this book was very emotionally charged and certainly packed a punch.

Content Warnings

zoelynn's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

lecheeese's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A girl/woman's look into the scenic wilderness of Alaska -- good and bad. The cruelty and viciousness of nature is reflected in her father who suffers from PTSD after the war.

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