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A review by lchamberlin97
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
5.0
You might notice a strange similarity between the last book I read, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and this one: both alternating between present and past, the past counting through the major events in someone's complicated life, and the present about a younger person developing as a result of this life.
BUT THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER.
I'll keep this short: the writing is just lovely, the characters are fantastically complex/well developed, the story line as a nice pace (combination of excitement and development), and the ending is perfect. In other words, it has all the things that make me love a book. Did it blow me away with uniqueness in terms of genre? No. But I've realized that the reason I can read this genre over and over and not get sick of it is because the characters feel like real people, and no two people are the same - as opposed to the formulas of other genres that feel like repetition. This book does the "real people" thing wonderfully.
Not that The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo fails at this, it's just...The Twelves Lives of Samuel Hawley is just lots more elegant about it and powerful. Like you know right off the bat that Loo's mother is dead but when you see how through Hawley's eyes it's HEARTBREAKING. And I just love Loo's progression. In conclusion: exactly what I needed.
BUT THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER.
I'll keep this short: the writing is just lovely, the characters are fantastically complex/well developed, the story line as a nice pace (combination of excitement and development), and the ending is perfect. In other words, it has all the things that make me love a book. Did it blow me away with uniqueness in terms of genre? No. But I've realized that the reason I can read this genre over and over and not get sick of it is because the characters feel like real people, and no two people are the same - as opposed to the formulas of other genres that feel like repetition. This book does the "real people" thing wonderfully.
Not that The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo fails at this, it's just...The Twelves Lives of Samuel Hawley is just lots more elegant about it and powerful. Like you know right off the bat that Loo's mother is dead but when you see how through Hawley's eyes it's HEARTBREAKING. And I just love Loo's progression. In conclusion: exactly what I needed.