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colleenlovestoread's review against another edition
4.0
Outside the Lines is a tender, compassionate look a woman who has grown up over the last twenty years yearning to fill the void within her when her father left her life due to consequences of his mental illness. It is also an insight into her father and how he rationalizes how he chooses to live. Amy Hatvany has given us readers a real gift with this book, laying bare these characters and letting us make up our own minds about how we feel about their decisions.
When Eden West was ten she discovered her father, David, bleeding on their bathroom floor, attempting suicide to stop the demons raging in his head and the guilt he felt during his more lucid moments when he realized the pain he caused his wife and daughter. The three of them had been dealing with David's mental illness and the consequences of his refusal to seek treatment for years. He saw everyone - the doctors, his family, society - as trying to force him into the mindless zombie that made him "normal" but killed the muse that made him the great artist he was. His wife saw him as being too sick or too selfish to get the help that would make him better. His daughter just saw him as daddy, someone who needed a little extra love to feel better. Regardless of what they thought, after his suicide attempt David seemed to disappear from Eden's life and she grew angry and felt betrayed that he didn't love her enough to come back. She fumbled her way through relationships but could never trust anyone to stay. So she put her heart and soul into becoming a great chef - cooking being something her father taught her - and in finding a sort of happiness with her best friend and dog. But when she had to face her mother becoming sick with cancer she realized she needed to find her father and see if they could make a relationship after all.
On her search for her father she comes into contact with Jack Baker, the founder and manager of a homeless shelter. He suggests she volunteer cooking at the shelter to not only keep an eye out for her father or someone who might know him but to get a better idea of what he might be going through living on the streets. As there relationship deepens into love he gingerly helps her realize that finding her father might not illicit the happy ending she seems to be envisioning. After all, who says he wants to "get better" or even be found?
Alternating between Eden's and David's points of view we get to see inside the wild, busy brain of David and what he thinks about his choices. While the author does a wonderful job of balancing out the psychotic with the emotional, tender parts of David I just couldn't wrap my mind around his choices. While I get that his choices are his to make and no one has a right to force anyone into their idea of a normal person, I just couldn't help but feel like he was being selfish in not even trying to let medication or his family help him. In the end I felt he put his art and his want to be free and clear to do whatever he wanted before his daughter. This is hard for me to swallow as his daughter didn't get the choice to be born into that madness.
In the end this book makes you really think about what makes someone sane and what makes someone crazy. It lets you realize that not everyone living on the streets is wanting your help but what they deserve, no matter what, is your compassion and understanding that there life is theres to live however they see fit. This book is perfect for a book club as I am sure everyone reading it will have a littl different take on the plot and the characters. I can't wait to read something else from this author!
When Eden West was ten she discovered her father, David, bleeding on their bathroom floor, attempting suicide to stop the demons raging in his head and the guilt he felt during his more lucid moments when he realized the pain he caused his wife and daughter. The three of them had been dealing with David's mental illness and the consequences of his refusal to seek treatment for years. He saw everyone - the doctors, his family, society - as trying to force him into the mindless zombie that made him "normal" but killed the muse that made him the great artist he was. His wife saw him as being too sick or too selfish to get the help that would make him better. His daughter just saw him as daddy, someone who needed a little extra love to feel better. Regardless of what they thought, after his suicide attempt David seemed to disappear from Eden's life and she grew angry and felt betrayed that he didn't love her enough to come back. She fumbled her way through relationships but could never trust anyone to stay. So she put her heart and soul into becoming a great chef - cooking being something her father taught her - and in finding a sort of happiness with her best friend and dog. But when she had to face her mother becoming sick with cancer she realized she needed to find her father and see if they could make a relationship after all.
On her search for her father she comes into contact with Jack Baker, the founder and manager of a homeless shelter. He suggests she volunteer cooking at the shelter to not only keep an eye out for her father or someone who might know him but to get a better idea of what he might be going through living on the streets. As there relationship deepens into love he gingerly helps her realize that finding her father might not illicit the happy ending she seems to be envisioning. After all, who says he wants to "get better" or even be found?
Alternating between Eden's and David's points of view we get to see inside the wild, busy brain of David and what he thinks about his choices. While the author does a wonderful job of balancing out the psychotic with the emotional, tender parts of David I just couldn't wrap my mind around his choices. While I get that his choices are his to make and no one has a right to force anyone into their idea of a normal person, I just couldn't help but feel like he was being selfish in not even trying to let medication or his family help him. In the end I felt he put his art and his want to be free and clear to do whatever he wanted before his daughter. This is hard for me to swallow as his daughter didn't get the choice to be born into that madness.
In the end this book makes you really think about what makes someone sane and what makes someone crazy. It lets you realize that not everyone living on the streets is wanting your help but what they deserve, no matter what, is your compassion and understanding that there life is theres to live however they see fit. This book is perfect for a book club as I am sure everyone reading it will have a littl different take on the plot and the characters. I can't wait to read something else from this author!
bookishbrandi's review
4.0
Once again Amy Hatvany has sucked me right into the lives of her characters. She has this great ability to make you care about her characters. I love that she tackles real life issues just as they are without feeling the need to sugarcoat or tie everything in a neat little bow. Great read.
jenniferdc's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
marc's review
3.0
Adult daughter searches for her estranged father, a mentally ill artist, whose disappearance from her life at age 10 haunts her relationships. Issues of mental illness, homelessness, advocacy, and romance.
elishaireland's review
5.0
i just absolutely adored this book, their are so much so many things i love about this book; the character development was fantastic you got to know a lot about them AND THE CHARACTERS were just amazing i fell for them almost immediately even the minor characters.
The mental disabilities that are talked about and are shown to you continually, are heart wrenching as well as heartwarming and definitely put you in someone else shoes and you learn to view things in a totally new perspective.
I loved how the structure of the book was layed out the flipping to and from the perspectives of Eden, David and it was particularly interesting how the it switched to the different time periods throughout.
It flew right past me before i even registered that i'd finished, all in all i loved it!
The mental disabilities that are talked about and are shown to you continually, are heart wrenching as well as heartwarming and definitely put you in someone else shoes and you learn to view things in a totally new perspective.
I loved how the structure of the book was layed out the flipping to and from the perspectives of Eden, David and it was particularly interesting how the it switched to the different time periods throughout.
It flew right past me before i even registered that i'd finished, all in all i loved it!
susanscribs's review
3.0
Not bad, but felt like an awkward mash-up at times of a romance novel and a serious look at living with mental illness. Surprised that Eden never wondered or worried if she was vulnerable to the same illness as her father.
dana_reads_books13's review
5.0
I liked this book a lot. I'd probably give it a 4.5. The book was well written and I would love to read more by this author!
leahmichelle_13's review
4.0
Last year I read and loved Best Kept Secret by Amy Hatvany. It was a magnificent novel that spoke to me so well. The tone was right, the characters were right and Hatvany didn’t pussyfoot around when it came to alcohol addiction. So when I heard about Amy’s new novel Outside The Lines, I was quite excited to see what she could come up with this time around. To see if she could top what she’d done with Best Kept Secret. As it turns out, the novels aren’t anywhere near similar, yet they’re both very effective at being emotional novels that you find hard to put down. You can tell Hatvany wrote both Best Kept Secret and Outside The Lines, but their impact is different to each other.
Outside The Lines is a novel of a dysfunctional family at its heart. When I started reading it I wasn’t sure what it was about as I didn’t actually read the blurb. So I was a bit surprised when it turned out to be a novel of a woman, Eden, who is searching for her homeless father whom she hasn’t seen for so many years. A father who is, to all intents and purposes, not what a father should be since he had an undiagnosed mental illness and regularly swung from being ridiculously happy to being ridiculously sad and withdrawn. A father who wouldn’t take his meds, who didn’t really fit the norm of a “normal” father. The novel swings back and forth from present day to back when Eden was a child and it was a sad mix to read just how her father affected her life. Eden’s devotion to her father was impressive. I know it’s her Dad, obviously, but still. What David does during the novel is just awful. Not purposefully awful, but awful nevertheless. It does make you question just why Eden is so intent on finding him, but then on the flipside of course Eden should find him, of course she should because he’s her Dad.
If I’m honest I did find the backstory to not be as interesting as the present story. Just as I was enjoying Eden’s search for her Dad, and her work at a homeless shelter, and her job as a chef, we’d swing back to a time when Eden’s life was, frankly, miserable and it was hard to read. It was difficult to read the dynamics of Eden and David’s relationship because it wasn’t a normal father/daughter relationship and it wasn’t a happy relationship, period. And honestly? It did make me uncomfortable for reasons I can’t really explain. I wasn’t expecting a happy read, of course not, but what David goes through and what Eden goes through is just inherently depressing. Yup, I’m sure it does happen in real life, of that I have little doubt, but it did bring the book down a lot, it did make it quite difficult to read as we got to see into David’s mind. It was sort of suffocating, hearing David’s crazy thoughts and then seeing the way Eden saw it as a child, too.
I did enjoy Outside The Lines. It was brilliantly written, I loved Eden, I loved Eden and Jack, who runs Hope House, the homeless shelter Eden volunteers at. I even liked the search for David, how Eden found out bits and pieces, how what she thought she knew was proven to be wrong and how she learned more about who her Dad (and her Mum!) really was. I enjoyed the way Hatvany presented mental illness, because it’s not a topic I know a lot about but I still can’t seem to shake the uncomfortable feeling between Eden and David. I can’t get past the fact that a father no matter how ill he was would let himself get found in a pool of blood after trying to kill himself and that that wouldn’t then effect Eden for quite some time. It was an alarmingly dark thing to put in the novel, and I just found it hard to get past that. Nevertheless Hatvany is an extremely talented writer and I would definitely recommend Outside The Lines. (Unless you’re squeamish.) Eden is a wonderful character despite her difficult past, and it is a very well written, engaging novel.
Outside The Lines is a novel of a dysfunctional family at its heart. When I started reading it I wasn’t sure what it was about as I didn’t actually read the blurb. So I was a bit surprised when it turned out to be a novel of a woman, Eden, who is searching for her homeless father whom she hasn’t seen for so many years. A father who is, to all intents and purposes, not what a father should be since he had an undiagnosed mental illness and regularly swung from being ridiculously happy to being ridiculously sad and withdrawn. A father who wouldn’t take his meds, who didn’t really fit the norm of a “normal” father. The novel swings back and forth from present day to back when Eden was a child and it was a sad mix to read just how her father affected her life. Eden’s devotion to her father was impressive. I know it’s her Dad, obviously, but still. What David does during the novel is just awful. Not purposefully awful, but awful nevertheless. It does make you question just why Eden is so intent on finding him, but then on the flipside of course Eden should find him, of course she should because he’s her Dad.
If I’m honest I did find the backstory to not be as interesting as the present story. Just as I was enjoying Eden’s search for her Dad, and her work at a homeless shelter, and her job as a chef, we’d swing back to a time when Eden’s life was, frankly, miserable and it was hard to read. It was difficult to read the dynamics of Eden and David’s relationship because it wasn’t a normal father/daughter relationship and it wasn’t a happy relationship, period. And honestly? It did make me uncomfortable for reasons I can’t really explain. I wasn’t expecting a happy read, of course not, but what David goes through and what Eden goes through is just inherently depressing. Yup, I’m sure it does happen in real life, of that I have little doubt, but it did bring the book down a lot, it did make it quite difficult to read as we got to see into David’s mind. It was sort of suffocating, hearing David’s crazy thoughts and then seeing the way Eden saw it as a child, too.
I did enjoy Outside The Lines. It was brilliantly written, I loved Eden, I loved Eden and Jack, who runs Hope House, the homeless shelter Eden volunteers at. I even liked the search for David, how Eden found out bits and pieces, how what she thought she knew was proven to be wrong and how she learned more about who her Dad (and her Mum!) really was. I enjoyed the way Hatvany presented mental illness, because it’s not a topic I know a lot about but I still can’t seem to shake the uncomfortable feeling between Eden and David. I can’t get past the fact that a father no matter how ill he was would let himself get found in a pool of blood after trying to kill himself and that that wouldn’t then effect Eden for quite some time. It was an alarmingly dark thing to put in the novel, and I just found it hard to get past that. Nevertheless Hatvany is an extremely talented writer and I would definitely recommend Outside The Lines. (Unless you’re squeamish.) Eden is a wonderful character despite her difficult past, and it is a very well written, engaging novel.
readincolour's review
3.0
All my father's secrets felt like stones in my belly. I was sure if I fell over the side of a ship, I'd sink.
Ever since she was a little girl, Eden West has kept a closely guarded secret. Her father's mental embarrassed her more times than she cared to remember. Causing scenes at school, in restaurants and with the neighbors, Eden knows he would do better if only he would take his medicine.
David West has no desire to take the pills that suppress his creative instincts. He's an artists and artists should be allowed to express themselves freely. In his heart, he wants to do right by his wife and his daughter, and he manages to in small spates. But it's inevitable that he'll stop taking the meds and find himself right back in a manic episode, leaving his wife and daughter to deal with the fallout.
As an adult, Eden's "daddy problems" have kept her from participating in fully functioning adult relationships. On a mission to find the father she hasn't seen in over 20 years, she begins to volunteer at a homeless shelter, where she gains a greater understanding of the homeless and mentally ill.
I was a fan of Amy Hatvany's from the moment I read her previous book Best Kept Secret. Much like Jodi Picoult, Hatvany tackles difficult subjects. In Best Kept Secret, it was alcoholism. With Outside the Lines, it's mental illness. Regardless of the topic, she handles it skillfully. Much like Jodi Picoult, she tells the story from the points of view of several characters, creating a clear picture. Unlike Picoult, Hatvany does not bog the reader down with pages and pages of detailed facts that start to read more like a medical book than a work of fiction. Hatvany recognizes that her readers are smart enough to do in depth research if they so desire. And they are definitely smart enough to stick with Amy Hatvany.
Ever since she was a little girl, Eden West has kept a closely guarded secret. Her father's mental embarrassed her more times than she cared to remember. Causing scenes at school, in restaurants and with the neighbors, Eden knows he would do better if only he would take his medicine.
David West has no desire to take the pills that suppress his creative instincts. He's an artists and artists should be allowed to express themselves freely. In his heart, he wants to do right by his wife and his daughter, and he manages to in small spates. But it's inevitable that he'll stop taking the meds and find himself right back in a manic episode, leaving his wife and daughter to deal with the fallout.
As an adult, Eden's "daddy problems" have kept her from participating in fully functioning adult relationships. On a mission to find the father she hasn't seen in over 20 years, she begins to volunteer at a homeless shelter, where she gains a greater understanding of the homeless and mentally ill.
I was a fan of Amy Hatvany's from the moment I read her previous book Best Kept Secret. Much like Jodi Picoult, Hatvany tackles difficult subjects. In Best Kept Secret, it was alcoholism. With Outside the Lines, it's mental illness. Regardless of the topic, she handles it skillfully. Much like Jodi Picoult, she tells the story from the points of view of several characters, creating a clear picture. Unlike Picoult, Hatvany does not bog the reader down with pages and pages of detailed facts that start to read more like a medical book than a work of fiction. Hatvany recognizes that her readers are smart enough to do in depth research if they so desire. And they are definitely smart enough to stick with Amy Hatvany.