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A review by jayqueuetee
One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper
3.0
As a long time Tropper reader, I appreciated the growth in "One Last Thing Before I Go." For the first time, the main character wasn't a rakish man child returning home to a family/town that no longer had faith in him. Instead, the main character is, quite simply, a loser.
Drew Silver has gone from a married father with a promising music career with a hit song to allowing his life to devolve into a divorced absentee father hitting up the local spank bank for cash in between stints playing weddings so he can pay the rent for his apartment at the depressing Versailles complex, home of dozens of similar sad sacks. The action begins when his 18-year-old valedictorian daughter comes over to tell him she's pregnant. When he asks why she's telling him, she bluntly says she isn't concerned about disappointing him.
Of course, that depressing tone doesn't pervade the rest of the book, even if Silver soon finds out - talk about a double whammy - that he has a heart condition that will kill him if he doesn't have an operation. The question becomes does he want to have the operation? He finds himself starting to connect a bit with Casey after half a decade of their relationship circling the drain. He starts to feel, in that cliched way, a bit more alive when facing death.
What I liked about "One Last Thing Before I Go":
1. Jonathan Tropper's voice. I've been a fan since his first novel, and I find him to be an easy fun voice to follow. He's an American Nick Hornby - though I'm finding I'm enjoying Tropper's latest works much more than Hornby's.
2. For the first time that I can recall, he doesn't write this in first person. For the first time, we get to hear the thoughts of those around the protagonist - Casey and her mother Denise get several interludes. It's not always perfect, but it was a surprising change.
3. Tropper writes better than most about friendship - specifically male friendship - and about the complexities of sex in modern society.
What I didn't like:
1. I'm so tired of books ending on ambiguous notes. Too many novels lately end where you just have to decide what happened. Come on already.
2. In the end, I didn't really LIKE Silver. I don't have to like main characters all the time, but there are some books where it definitely helps. I should have liked him more, but I didn't.
3. I held this up against some of Tropper's other works, and it just never entertained and impressed me the way "Plan B" and "This is Where I Leave You" did.
In the end? Three stars. I liked it well enough. I'm happy to have had it to read. Not something I want to put in other people's hands like his previous books.
Drew Silver has gone from a married father with a promising music career with a hit song to allowing his life to devolve into a divorced absentee father hitting up the local spank bank for cash in between stints playing weddings so he can pay the rent for his apartment at the depressing Versailles complex, home of dozens of similar sad sacks. The action begins when his 18-year-old valedictorian daughter comes over to tell him she's pregnant. When he asks why she's telling him, she bluntly says she isn't concerned about disappointing him.
Of course, that depressing tone doesn't pervade the rest of the book, even if Silver soon finds out - talk about a double whammy - that he has a heart condition that will kill him if he doesn't have an operation. The question becomes does he want to have the operation? He finds himself starting to connect a bit with Casey after half a decade of their relationship circling the drain. He starts to feel, in that cliched way, a bit more alive when facing death.
What I liked about "One Last Thing Before I Go":
1. Jonathan Tropper's voice. I've been a fan since his first novel, and I find him to be an easy fun voice to follow. He's an American Nick Hornby - though I'm finding I'm enjoying Tropper's latest works much more than Hornby's.
2. For the first time that I can recall, he doesn't write this in first person. For the first time, we get to hear the thoughts of those around the protagonist - Casey and her mother Denise get several interludes. It's not always perfect, but it was a surprising change.
3. Tropper writes better than most about friendship - specifically male friendship - and about the complexities of sex in modern society.
What I didn't like:
1. I'm so tired of books ending on ambiguous notes. Too many novels lately end where you just have to decide what happened. Come on already.
2. In the end, I didn't really LIKE Silver. I don't have to like main characters all the time, but there are some books where it definitely helps. I should have liked him more, but I didn't.
3. I held this up against some of Tropper's other works, and it just never entertained and impressed me the way "Plan B" and "This is Where I Leave You" did.
In the end? Three stars. I liked it well enough. I'm happy to have had it to read. Not something I want to put in other people's hands like his previous books.