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A review by jenibus
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian
4.0
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands could have easily been one of my favorite books. The plot is engaging and told from an unique perspective, and I kept eagerly reading hoping to discover more about Emily's backstory and what she had went through. But due to the method of storytelling I kept finding myself getting frustrated at the pacing of everything.
Emily Shepard is the daughter of Mira and Bill Shepard who worked at a nuclear power plant off of Cape Abenaki when the site undergoes a meltdown. The entire city and neighboring areas are evacuated, everyone fearing radiation poisoning, and Emily is left parentless. To make matters worse, evidence comes to light implicating her father's alcohol problem as a key factor into the plant's meltdown and Emily's family becomes the dead scapegoats. With the public turning on her for her parents mistakes, Emily runs away and takes up the name Abby Bliss, living on the street and trying to survive on her own.
Like I said, the story is excellent. I was extremely invested in Emily's story and there were many times that the writing made me emotional. But the way Emily's story is told drove me nuts. Emily herself is literally writing the story for us in her journals and unfortunately it feels like a teenager writing in her journals. The story wanders back and forth, told out of order and with pointless tangents Emily included as she thought of them. There was one point where we halted the story to have Emily explain to us that she remembered how to grammatically differentiate between the different "lay, lie, lies" words. Which… I guess is impressive as I can never get that right but it served nothing to the story she's telling.
She also told the story in a very strange order. As I read more and more books, I'm coming to discover that non-linear stories are not necessarily my thing and Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands really emphasized this. We'd reference and foreshadow events we hadn't yet found out about, which normally is a good thing, but we'd do it with such frequency that it quickly got annoying that she wasn't telling me about these things yet. She mentions early on a 9 year old boy named Cameron who she clearly had a sort of parental relationship with and you can tell that something bad happened to him, but we don't actually meet Cameron until 2/3rds of the way through the book. She'd reference future events so often that you are sitting there reading and just waiting for her to tell you the final piece of information so you get a clear picture of how this thing you know will happen actually occurs.
The other problem I had with the book is much less a structure issue and more of a matter of personal taste. Emily LOVES Emily Dickinson. She's obsessed with her. What feels like large portions of the book is devoted to her telling the reader interesting tidbits about Emily Dickinson's life and poetry. Even the alias Emily takes up, Abby Bliss, is a name from Emily Dickinson's biography. Here's the issue, though: I really don't like Emily Dickinson's work or find her to be an interesting person. Maybe it's due to an over-zealous english teacher making us study her for what felt like months (I'm sure it was only a single month but it felt like the entire year we were learning about Emily Dickinson and analyzing her poetry) but whatever the reason, I do not enjoy her poetry and do not care about her life. And so every single time Emily went on a mini-teaching tangent about how fascinating Emily Dickinson is, I reacted overtly negatively.
If you can get past the stream of consciousness method in which the book is told and don't hate Emily Dickinson like I do, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is an amazing read. It's story is heartfelt and I moved past all of my frustrations while reading because I was so invested in finding out what happened to Emily and Cameron. I listened to this at work and there were points where I was nearly crying at my cubicle (basically any time Maggie the dog's predicament inside the radiation zone was mentioned sent me into near tears). Emily is a great teenage character going through very adult problems making some horrible decisions. I just wish that maybe we hadn't gotten the direction connection to her brainspace and someone edited her journals before I had to read them.
(Side note: do not like the teenage main character fool you. This is an adult book. There is prostitution and drug use and mention of rape and some very dark material in here. Even the title itself has very dark undertones once you find out what it means. Do not go into this book expecting a light and fluffy YA book.)
Emily Shepard is the daughter of Mira and Bill Shepard who worked at a nuclear power plant off of Cape Abenaki when the site undergoes a meltdown. The entire city and neighboring areas are evacuated, everyone fearing radiation poisoning, and Emily is left parentless. To make matters worse, evidence comes to light implicating her father's alcohol problem as a key factor into the plant's meltdown and Emily's family becomes the dead scapegoats. With the public turning on her for her parents mistakes, Emily runs away and takes up the name Abby Bliss, living on the street and trying to survive on her own.
Like I said, the story is excellent. I was extremely invested in Emily's story and there were many times that the writing made me emotional. But the way Emily's story is told drove me nuts. Emily herself is literally writing the story for us in her journals and unfortunately it feels like a teenager writing in her journals. The story wanders back and forth, told out of order and with pointless tangents Emily included as she thought of them. There was one point where we halted the story to have Emily explain to us that she remembered how to grammatically differentiate between the different "lay, lie, lies" words. Which… I guess is impressive as I can never get that right but it served nothing to the story she's telling.
She also told the story in a very strange order. As I read more and more books, I'm coming to discover that non-linear stories are not necessarily my thing and Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands really emphasized this. We'd reference and foreshadow events we hadn't yet found out about, which normally is a good thing, but we'd do it with such frequency that it quickly got annoying that she wasn't telling me about these things yet. She mentions early on a 9 year old boy named Cameron who she clearly had a sort of parental relationship with and you can tell that something bad happened to him, but we don't actually meet Cameron until 2/3rds of the way through the book. She'd reference future events so often that you are sitting there reading and just waiting for her to tell you the final piece of information so you get a clear picture of how this thing you know will happen actually occurs.
The other problem I had with the book is much less a structure issue and more of a matter of personal taste. Emily LOVES Emily Dickinson. She's obsessed with her. What feels like large portions of the book is devoted to her telling the reader interesting tidbits about Emily Dickinson's life and poetry. Even the alias Emily takes up, Abby Bliss, is a name from Emily Dickinson's biography. Here's the issue, though: I really don't like Emily Dickinson's work or find her to be an interesting person. Maybe it's due to an over-zealous english teacher making us study her for what felt like months (I'm sure it was only a single month but it felt like the entire year we were learning about Emily Dickinson and analyzing her poetry) but whatever the reason, I do not enjoy her poetry and do not care about her life. And so every single time Emily went on a mini-teaching tangent about how fascinating Emily Dickinson is, I reacted overtly negatively.
If you can get past the stream of consciousness method in which the book is told and don't hate Emily Dickinson like I do, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is an amazing read. It's story is heartfelt and I moved past all of my frustrations while reading because I was so invested in finding out what happened to Emily and Cameron. I listened to this at work and there were points where I was nearly crying at my cubicle (basically any time Maggie the dog's predicament inside the radiation zone was mentioned sent me into near tears). Emily is a great teenage character going through very adult problems making some horrible decisions. I just wish that maybe we hadn't gotten the direction connection to her brainspace and someone edited her journals before I had to read them.
(Side note: do not like the teenage main character fool you. This is an adult book. There is prostitution and drug use and mention of rape and some very dark material in here. Even the title itself has very dark undertones once you find out what it means. Do not go into this book expecting a light and fluffy YA book.)