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anneaustex's review
4.0
Horace Hooper has lived for several years on a ranch where he is cared for like a son by Mr and Mrs Reese. But Horace yearns to be someone-- a professional boxer. He wants to make a name for himself so he leaves the Reeses, the ranch, the horses and dogs and heads to Las Vegas where he can obtain a trainer and prepare for his new life as a boxer.
Filled with beautiful writing, characters that a reader can love, and a story you won't want to put down, this book packs a gut-wrenching wallop. Willy Vlautin knows how to draw the reader in with his prose: "Mr Reese had told him that life, at its core, was a cruel burden because we had the knowledge that we were born to die. We were born with innocent eyes and those eyes had to see pain and death and deceit and violence and heartache. If we were lucky we lived long enough to see most everything we love die. But, he said, being honorable and truthful took a little of the sting out of it. It made life bearable."
This book contains some fairly graphic scenes of Horace's boxing matches and the injuries he sustains so it may not be for all readers. However, anyone who cares to take a chance with Horace and the Reeses will receive the payoff of a story delivered by a master storyteller.
I received an ARC of this book as a part of LibraryThing Early Readers.
Filled with beautiful writing, characters that a reader can love, and a story you won't want to put down, this book packs a gut-wrenching wallop. Willy Vlautin knows how to draw the reader in with his prose: "Mr Reese had told him that life, at its core, was a cruel burden because we had the knowledge that we were born to die. We were born with innocent eyes and those eyes had to see pain and death and deceit and violence and heartache. If we were lucky we lived long enough to see most everything we love die. But, he said, being honorable and truthful took a little of the sting out of it. It made life bearable."
This book contains some fairly graphic scenes of Horace's boxing matches and the injuries he sustains so it may not be for all readers. However, anyone who cares to take a chance with Horace and the Reeses will receive the payoff of a story delivered by a master storyteller.
I received an ARC of this book as a part of LibraryThing Early Readers.
petekeeley's review
5.0
Brilliant. His best yet. Absolutely loved it. Horace/Hector and Mr and Mrs Reese will be in my head for a long time.
dannafs's review
2.0
“As you get older you’ll get better at stopping things that can hurt you before they start. You’ll see farther down the line.”
angelayoung's review
4.0
DON'T SKIP OUT ON ME is a melancholy book, the kind of book (at least if you're not an American, as I'm not) you think should be written about America, Americans and especially about mixed-race Americans. Mixed-race in this sense meaning half-white, half-Paiute Indian, so half new America and half old America (before the new Americans, the European emigrants, arrived). A book not about those who succeed but about those who dream and try and, often, fail. A real book about real people and what happens to them, as opposed to a book that subscribes to the idea that achieving the American dream is always possible, for everyone.
Vlautin's language doesn't pull any punches (literally: Horace wants to be a boxer and succeeds and fails, both) and I got the feeling from the beginning that Horace's journey wasn't going to go too well. And yet there are moments of true tenderness and understanding between Horace and the much older man, Mr Reese, on whose farm Horace worked before he lit out to try his luck as a boxer. Their relationship continues, intermittently, as proxy father and son, by telephone and letter.
Nothing works out for Horace, not in love, not as a boxer and not in the end. But along the way the journey is so beautifully told and is so full of emotional truth that it slowly dawned on me that, despite the differences in culture and country, Horace's story is the story of most of our lives: life isn't always great, but it's not always so terrible either. Horace manages to achieve at least some of what he dreams of achieving and manages to live well enough, sometimes.
DON'T SKIP OUT ON ME is a story about human connection and understanding when it works and when it doesn't. A real story, as in true and truly felt, about people who live on the fringes of contemporary American society (but also about all of us, despite surface differences of race and background).
Vlautin's language doesn't pull any punches (literally: Horace wants to be a boxer and succeeds and fails, both) and I got the feeling from the beginning that Horace's journey wasn't going to go too well. And yet there are moments of true tenderness and understanding between Horace and the much older man, Mr Reese, on whose farm Horace worked before he lit out to try his luck as a boxer. Their relationship continues, intermittently, as proxy father and son, by telephone and letter.
Nothing works out for Horace, not in love, not as a boxer and not in the end. But along the way the journey is so beautifully told and is so full of emotional truth that it slowly dawned on me that, despite the differences in culture and country, Horace's story is the story of most of our lives: life isn't always great, but it's not always so terrible either. Horace manages to achieve at least some of what he dreams of achieving and manages to live well enough, sometimes.
DON'T SKIP OUT ON ME is a story about human connection and understanding when it works and when it doesn't. A real story, as in true and truly felt, about people who live on the fringes of contemporary American society (but also about all of us, despite surface differences of race and background).
devilstatedan's review
5.0
One of my favourite authors writing today and his works just keep getting better and better. This one is concerning a young American Indian man who passionately desires to be a champion boxer. He begins his journey on a ranch in Nevada where an ageing couple has adopted him, and follows him to Arizona as he sets his mind to a life of pugilism. Beautifully written and full of the heart and pathos that Willy Vlautin is famous for. A stellar effort and worthy of much praise.
alanfederman's review
4.0
As always, the Nervous Breakdown Bookclub comes through with a powerful novel from a writer I've never before read - Willy Vlautin. It's a beautifully written, yet sparse novel about a troubled boy/young man who is adopted by a sheep rancher. The boy (Horace and sometimes Hector) has dreams of being a prize fighter but continually deals with his abandonment by his parents and his mixed heritage (half Native American/half Irish). His adopted father, Eldon Reese, is a kind man who does his best to bring out the best in Horace and help him find his way. No more on the plot - spoilers may occur.
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