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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
Gritty. Dark. Charismatic. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley seamlessly intertwines the origin tales of Hawley's twelve bullet wounds, with the coming-of-age story of his daughter Loo. Both narratives working in tandem to express the love both Hawley and Loo have for each other, despite the good and bad in both of them.
I kept waiting for it to get better, more interesting, aaaannnddddd.... no dice. Not everything made sense. I didn’t connect with the characters at all. I mean, the book has good bones! That’s the frustrating part. What was missing, I can’t even put my finger on exactly. If you are going to read it, borrow it. If you feel yourself losing interest after 100 pages go ahead and chuck it because it doesn’t get any better, unfortunately.
I just didn't love this. I kept having to encourage myself to listen to this rather than music or podcasts, which is never a good sign. The relationship between the father and daughter were good, but there were too many tertiary characters that I just didn't care about, and overall, I felt the author tried too hard. That said, I didn't abandon it because I did care about their relationship and wanted to see who Loo would become.
First of all, a huge thank you to Tinder Press for approving me on NetGalley for this fantastic novel in exchange for an honest review. Honestly, this story was one amazing, crazy ride and I loved every moment of it. When I first saw the title of this book, I immediately compared it in my mind to The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August which was a book I reviewed with my sister Chrissi Reads and is also one of my all-time favourite books. Let me just say that The Twelve Lives Of Samuel Hawley is nothing like Harry August when we consider the subject matter but it's just as thrilling and written just as beautifully and is definitely a book I would re-read in the future.
This novel focuses on two main protagonists - widower Samuel Hawley and his daughter Loo whom he is raising on his own after his wife, Lily died shortly after Loo was born in a terrible accident on a lake. The "twelve lives" of the title are actually twelve bullets that have struck Samuel at different points in his life in various places in his body. We, the reader learn the story behind each individual bullet, how Samuel came to be shot and what the consequences were for him. Interspersed with the bullet stories is also the story of Samuel's relationship with his wife Lily and, after she gave birth to his daughter, the story of Samuel and Loo. Samuel has made a lot of mistakes in his life (well....come on, he's been shot twelve times?!) but he has a fierce love for his daughter and would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. Unfortunately, this means he always has to sleep with one eye open as his chequered and colourful past is threatening to catch up with him.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting from this novel but it certainly wasn't this and I was delighted to discover a gritty, exciting and incredibly unique plot with fascinating characters that make it difficult to put the book down. In the synopsis, it's compared to Quentin Tarantino and Scheherazade by Ann Patchett and I couldn't have put it more perfectly myself. There are violent, bloodthirsty and graphic scenes combined with moments of such tenderness that it almost feels like you're reading a very modern day fairy tale minus the magical realism. Samuel and Loo were such intriguing characters to read about and although they were both flawed and a bit kooky I literally didn't want to let them go by the end of the novel. On the strength and pure beauty of Hannah Tinti's story-telling I will one hundred percent read anything she writes and now can't wait to read her debut novel The Good Thief.
For my full review please visit my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com
This novel focuses on two main protagonists - widower Samuel Hawley and his daughter Loo whom he is raising on his own after his wife, Lily died shortly after Loo was born in a terrible accident on a lake. The "twelve lives" of the title are actually twelve bullets that have struck Samuel at different points in his life in various places in his body. We, the reader learn the story behind each individual bullet, how Samuel came to be shot and what the consequences were for him. Interspersed with the bullet stories is also the story of Samuel's relationship with his wife Lily and, after she gave birth to his daughter, the story of Samuel and Loo. Samuel has made a lot of mistakes in his life (well....come on, he's been shot twelve times?!) but he has a fierce love for his daughter and would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. Unfortunately, this means he always has to sleep with one eye open as his chequered and colourful past is threatening to catch up with him.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting from this novel but it certainly wasn't this and I was delighted to discover a gritty, exciting and incredibly unique plot with fascinating characters that make it difficult to put the book down. In the synopsis, it's compared to Quentin Tarantino and Scheherazade by Ann Patchett and I couldn't have put it more perfectly myself. There are violent, bloodthirsty and graphic scenes combined with moments of such tenderness that it almost feels like you're reading a very modern day fairy tale minus the magical realism. Samuel and Loo were such intriguing characters to read about and although they were both flawed and a bit kooky I literally didn't want to let them go by the end of the novel. On the strength and pure beauty of Hannah Tinti's story-telling I will one hundred percent read anything she writes and now can't wait to read her debut novel The Good Thief.
For my full review please visit my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com
4 1/2 stars. once i got past the annoyance of the fake town of Olympus, I kept coming back to this book as much as i could. Interesting characters and i liked the jumping back and forth in time with different POVs.
I chose this book for a seven-hour flight from Baltimore to San Francisco, by way of Milwaukee because my loan from NetGalley was about to expire. That’s always kind of risky, because whenever I get on a plane I have a tendency to try to push myself to read as much of a book as possible but then my opinion of the book sometimes suffers from reader’s fatigue. I focus on plowing through and forget to enjoy.
Anyone else find themselves doing that?
But this book is like 480 pages in print form and I read all but 50 pages of the digital galley on that seven-hour flight and I didn’t really start to experience fatigue. I had a brief moment of hesitation, but once I saw what Hannah Tinti was doing, I was mesmerized. Hooked, and there was no fatigue in sight.
So, this book follows young Loo from the age of twelve until she is seventeen. She's the only daughter of Samuel Hawley, a gruff widower with twelve bullet scars and a dark past. He teaches Loo to do things like shoot guns and hotwire cars and they live a transient life up until she is twelve when he settles her into her late mother’s hometown in search of stability and redemption. Loo knows relatively little about her mother's death, a drowning when Loo was an infant, or her father's scars or why their life has been so transient. She is lonely and quiet and slowly accumulating grit.
The story is told in two timelines, alternating between chapters dedicated to Loo’s adolescence and chapters chronicling her father's twelve bullets. I initially felt some hesitancy about the bullet chapters. They felt a little unnecessary at first, disjointed from the more compelling present-day story. I even debated skimming them, but then it gradually became clear just how Tinti intended to bring everything full-circle and I felt so silly for having considered that. It turned out to be such smart construction that allowed Tinti to slowly divulge details to her reader as Loo herself was starting to piece things together. It just took some patience to get to there.
The book's main thrust is to grapple with the big moral question, do you have to be a good man to be a good father? And is there a point when redemption is no longer possible? These are fascinating questions, and Tinti explores them thoughtfully and with complexity. She has a knack for capturing small details that make a big impact, and it's easy to get lost in her world. Loo and Samuel are intricately drawn characters, and it's easy to feel compassion for them even when they're not doing good things.
That being said, it's not a perfect book. I did wish she'd gotten through those last fifty pages more efficiently; the last scene got dragged out a little too much. But if you like gritty stories with just enough mystery, if you don't need characters to be likable to want to root for them, if you don't mind a little criminal activity in your coming-of-age tales...then this is the book for you. Damn. It was one hell of a good read. 4.5 stars.
Anyone else find themselves doing that?
But this book is like 480 pages in print form and I read all but 50 pages of the digital galley on that seven-hour flight and I didn’t really start to experience fatigue. I had a brief moment of hesitation, but once I saw what Hannah Tinti was doing, I was mesmerized. Hooked, and there was no fatigue in sight.
So, this book follows young Loo from the age of twelve until she is seventeen. She's the only daughter of Samuel Hawley, a gruff widower with twelve bullet scars and a dark past. He teaches Loo to do things like shoot guns and hotwire cars and they live a transient life up until she is twelve when he settles her into her late mother’s hometown in search of stability and redemption. Loo knows relatively little about her mother's death, a drowning when Loo was an infant, or her father's scars or why their life has been so transient. She is lonely and quiet and slowly accumulating grit.
The story is told in two timelines, alternating between chapters dedicated to Loo’s adolescence and chapters chronicling her father's twelve bullets. I initially felt some hesitancy about the bullet chapters. They felt a little unnecessary at first, disjointed from the more compelling present-day story. I even debated skimming them, but then it gradually became clear just how Tinti intended to bring everything full-circle and I felt so silly for having considered that. It turned out to be such smart construction that allowed Tinti to slowly divulge details to her reader as Loo herself was starting to piece things together. It just took some patience to get to there.
The book's main thrust is to grapple with the big moral question, do you have to be a good man to be a good father? And is there a point when redemption is no longer possible? These are fascinating questions, and Tinti explores them thoughtfully and with complexity. She has a knack for capturing small details that make a big impact, and it's easy to get lost in her world. Loo and Samuel are intricately drawn characters, and it's easy to feel compassion for them even when they're not doing good things.
That being said, it's not a perfect book. I did wish she'd gotten through those last fifty pages more efficiently; the last scene got dragged out a little too much. But if you like gritty stories with just enough mystery, if you don't need characters to be likable to want to root for them, if you don't mind a little criminal activity in your coming-of-age tales...then this is the book for you. Damn. It was one hell of a good read. 4.5 stars.
***
Unfortunately reminds me of My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tellent which is a terrible and disturbing story of another father and daughter alone together, hiding, and also lots of guns.
I was so looking forward to this book with the hope it would be a break from the 2 star books I have been reading.
The beginning was so smooth. A good sign that this would be the one. The middle was a little slower but the end, the end was so good.
That ending brought it up from a 3 star to a 3.5 and rounded up to a 4.
I warn you that this book is not full of lovable characters. All of them are more black with shades of grey than white. The ones that could be white are not developed remaining flat.
This book has also been written in deadpan. So do not expect deep emotions from anyone. It really is not that type of story.
The beginning was so smooth. A good sign that this would be the one. The middle was a little slower but the end, the end was so good.
That ending brought it up from a 3 star to a 3.5 and rounded up to a 4.
I warn you that this book is not full of lovable characters. All of them are more black with shades of grey than white. The ones that could be white are not developed remaining flat.
This book has also been written in deadpan. So do not expect deep emotions from anyone. It really is not that type of story.
I'm kind of conflicted about this book. I loved the story, the writing, and the characters. I only had two problems. The first being the pacing. The first half of the book moved really slowly for me. The second problem I had was with the Lily and Hawley's relationship. I wanted to see more of their time together, especially since so much of Hawley's life is spent mourning her. The parts of their relationship we do see make me wonder why she stayed with him.