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A review by carolpk
Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston
5.0
The Hook - Have you ever played that trust game called Fall Back? You know the one where you fall backwards into empty space and trust that someone will catch you or you could say “has your back”. That’s how I felt when I chose Remember Me Like This. Two of my trusted friends, Jill S. & Elyse W. both raved so much about this that I had faith they wouldn’t drop me into the pages of a book that was not good.
The Line – ”When she’d last seen Justin, girls were strange, prissy creatures to be avoided—a flash of memory: hadn’t he, one evening, Asked her to marry him?—so the fact that he’d returned having had a girlfriend was the sorriest, most irrefutable proof of how long he’d been gone.”
The Sinker – I’d consider Remember Me Like This to be one of the most real fiction books I’ve ever read. Many books have explored the theme and horror of a missing child. Few have done it as well as Bret Anthony Johnston. If I hadn’t known he was a man, I’d have thought he was a woman, as he captured the emotion and deep pain of the mother of the missing teen, while not losing the torment, helplessness or guilt felt by Justin’s father, brother and grandfather.
There you have it, simple yet so complex. Justin Campbell disappears from his coastal Texas town. As you’d expect everyone rallies, parents, friends, police and townspeople search for the missing youth. As time passes, it’s difficult to keep the momentum up but his parents Eric and Laura do their best to keep Justin’s photo and case in people’s minds. When they receive a postcard in Justin’s writing telling them Don’t Stop Looking”it strengthen their belief their son is alive. Then one afternoon, the impossible happens.” Four years had gone by, four years of searching, of wondering, of spiraling hope, of prayers, of tears, of the most agonizing pain one could bear. Justin’s return seems a miracle, a cause for joy and it is, but it is also a time of questions, struggle, guilt, love, hate, a myriad of emotional fervor as this family tries to heal.
Johnston has bared a family’s soul in every way you can imagine in this excruciatingly written, tightly plotted book.
It is difficult not to share any passages confirming the truth of the excellence of Johnston’s writing. Fall back, trust me, I’ll catch you.
The Line – ”When she’d last seen Justin, girls were strange, prissy creatures to be avoided—a flash of memory: hadn’t he, one evening, Asked her to marry him?—so the fact that he’d returned having had a girlfriend was the sorriest, most irrefutable proof of how long he’d been gone.”
The Sinker – I’d consider Remember Me Like This to be one of the most real fiction books I’ve ever read. Many books have explored the theme and horror of a missing child. Few have done it as well as Bret Anthony Johnston. If I hadn’t known he was a man, I’d have thought he was a woman, as he captured the emotion and deep pain of the mother of the missing teen, while not losing the torment, helplessness or guilt felt by Justin’s father, brother and grandfather.
There you have it, simple yet so complex. Justin Campbell disappears from his coastal Texas town. As you’d expect everyone rallies, parents, friends, police and townspeople search for the missing youth. As time passes, it’s difficult to keep the momentum up but his parents Eric and Laura do their best to keep Justin’s photo and case in people’s minds. When they receive a postcard in Justin’s writing telling them Don’t Stop Looking”it strengthen their belief their son is alive. Then one afternoon, the impossible happens.” Four years had gone by, four years of searching, of wondering, of spiraling hope, of prayers, of tears, of the most agonizing pain one could bear. Justin’s return seems a miracle, a cause for joy and it is, but it is also a time of questions, struggle, guilt, love, hate, a myriad of emotional fervor as this family tries to heal.
Johnston has bared a family’s soul in every way you can imagine in this excruciatingly written, tightly plotted book.
It is difficult not to share any passages confirming the truth of the excellence of Johnston’s writing. Fall back, trust me, I’ll catch you.