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A review by bookrantreviews
All Who Wander by Joe Clifford
4.0
It's been over two decades since 20-year-old Brooke Mulcahy disappeared. Her body never found, rumors about her fate have plagued her younger half-brother Bobby's life. He was only a kid at the time she went missing, living with Brooke's alcoholic father following their mother's death. Detested by Brooke, uncared for by her dad, and abused by her boyfriend, his childhood was a nightmare no kid deserved. It wouldn't have been a shock if he'd turned to alcohol and drugs to cope like those around him. But he didn't. Instead, he rose above it.
Now known as Robert with a wife and child of his own, he's a successful professor at Uniondale University and the winner of a coveted NEH grant. His life is pretty sweet. His wife is gorgeous. His son's thirteen and a great kid. He lives in a nice house in the suburbs and drives a Porsche. Although he goes to therapy to try to find closure from his childhood and Brooke's disappearance, he's lived his adult life as a stable, proud, and happy man. However, his life quickly starts to unravel when a young woman named Lily shows up at his office one afternoon claiming to be Brooke's daughter.
Suddenly, the past is literally at his doorstep, breaking into his house and mutilating his dog. His wife leaves him without warning and takes his son with her. A red car starts stalking his house. Robert has no choice but to go back to the night Brooke disappeared and figure out exactly what happened. However, nothing that he uncovers about that night is as horrific as the truth about their lives leading up to her disappearance -- or the unraveling of Robert's life in present-day.
Chilling, gritty, and twisty, "All Who Wander" by Joe Clifford is just what you expect from this author. It's brilliant. Unputdownable. And filled with a darkness that you can feel as if it were your own. Joe Clifford has a knack for creating characters that you don't just get to know. You get to "feel" them too. It's almost like you can hear them breathing and read their thoughts. There's a depth to them that you don't find with every author, even the mega popular and talented ones.
This is especially true with Robert's "character". He's a heavy character who I couldn't like, no matter how much was written into the story early-on that should have made me feel otherwise. Brooke was cruel to him when he was a kid, but she was troubled too and just wanted out of her unloved, unhappy life. She was written to be unliked, but I couldn't quite get there. Did Clifford want me to dislike her? Definitely -- if you judge by the words he wrote. However, you get gut feelings about Joe's characters like you would people in real life. Your gut feelings are very likely not to be the same as mine because in real life (again) we aren't always going to like the same people.
There's a lot going on in "All Who Wander". Although the book follows Robert as he searches for the truth about what happened to his half-sister Brooke, other characters and revelations about the past deliver a much more complex storyline. It's well-written and completely engrossing right up until the conclusion when he reveals Brooke's fate and what happened before she disappeared. It's a satisfactory final twist that you'll either have you shocked or saying "meh". It didn't knock my socks off, but it did lower them to my ankles. That's good enough for me. Not every ending has to be a jaw-dropper, especially when the book as a whole is as good as this one.
Thank you to Joe Clifford and Lisa from Swell Media for the complimentary eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
Now known as Robert with a wife and child of his own, he's a successful professor at Uniondale University and the winner of a coveted NEH grant. His life is pretty sweet. His wife is gorgeous. His son's thirteen and a great kid. He lives in a nice house in the suburbs and drives a Porsche. Although he goes to therapy to try to find closure from his childhood and Brooke's disappearance, he's lived his adult life as a stable, proud, and happy man. However, his life quickly starts to unravel when a young woman named Lily shows up at his office one afternoon claiming to be Brooke's daughter.
Suddenly, the past is literally at his doorstep, breaking into his house and mutilating his dog. His wife leaves him without warning and takes his son with her. A red car starts stalking his house. Robert has no choice but to go back to the night Brooke disappeared and figure out exactly what happened. However, nothing that he uncovers about that night is as horrific as the truth about their lives leading up to her disappearance -- or the unraveling of Robert's life in present-day.
Chilling, gritty, and twisty, "All Who Wander" by Joe Clifford is just what you expect from this author. It's brilliant. Unputdownable. And filled with a darkness that you can feel as if it were your own. Joe Clifford has a knack for creating characters that you don't just get to know. You get to "feel" them too. It's almost like you can hear them breathing and read their thoughts. There's a depth to them that you don't find with every author, even the mega popular and talented ones.
This is especially true with Robert's "character". He's a heavy character who I couldn't like, no matter how much was written into the story early-on that should have made me feel otherwise. Brooke was cruel to him when he was a kid, but she was troubled too and just wanted out of her unloved, unhappy life. She was written to be unliked, but I couldn't quite get there. Did Clifford want me to dislike her? Definitely -- if you judge by the words he wrote. However, you get gut feelings about Joe's characters like you would people in real life. Your gut feelings are very likely not to be the same as mine because in real life (again) we aren't always going to like the same people.
There's a lot going on in "All Who Wander". Although the book follows Robert as he searches for the truth about what happened to his half-sister Brooke, other characters and revelations about the past deliver a much more complex storyline. It's well-written and completely engrossing right up until the conclusion when he reveals Brooke's fate and what happened before she disappeared. It's a satisfactory final twist that you'll either have you shocked or saying "meh". It didn't knock my socks off, but it did lower them to my ankles. That's good enough for me. Not every ending has to be a jaw-dropper, especially when the book as a whole is as good as this one.
Thank you to Joe Clifford and Lisa from Swell Media for the complimentary eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.