A Compelling Tale of Love, Family, & Finding Yourself
"But I get ahead of myself. I go to the end when, to understand the truth, you have to start at the beginning."
These opening lines of Cory Anderson's debut novel "What Beauty There Is" set the tone for this tale told in retrospect. Part coming-of-age journey and part harrowing heist, Anderson introduces us to Jack Dahl, a teenager careening toward adulthood as his life frays the edges. When tragedy forces Jack and his young brother, Matty, to feel into the harsh unknowns of brutal Utah winter.
Just like its lead character, "What Beauty There Is" is scrappy. With a pace that alternates between frantic and fevered to methodical and reminiscent, Anderson guides us along a path that is as winding as the mountain ranges that Jack and his heroine/savior, Ava, have to traverse.
What made this book for me were the characters. There are not cliched portrayals. No veiled characters that fail to deliver. Jack is as unpretentious as the crumbling childhood home that he has to flee. Ava as fierce and steady as the snowstorms that bellow around them. These are real people, rooted in life, that could easily be you or I if our circumstances were suddenly reverse.
While the plot was muddled and some of the villainous presences seemed to bleed into one another, I'm speaking of Bardem and in the man in the top-hat, there is a payoff for making it to the end. With a finale arc that will both deflate your spirit and keep your heart soaring, Anderson has a formidable voice that breathes some much-needed realness into the often dramatized, and easily mocked, young adult arena.
These opening lines of Cory Anderson's debut novel "What Beauty There Is" set the tone for this tale told in retrospect. Part coming-of-age journey and part harrowing heist, Anderson introduces us to Jack Dahl, a teenager careening toward adulthood as his life frays the edges. When tragedy forces Jack and his young brother, Matty, to feel into the harsh unknowns of brutal Utah winter.
Just like its lead character, "What Beauty There Is" is scrappy. With a pace that alternates between frantic and fevered to methodical and reminiscent, Anderson guides us along a path that is as winding as the mountain ranges that Jack and his heroine/savior, Ava, have to traverse.
What made this book for me were the characters. There are not cliched portrayals. No veiled characters that fail to deliver. Jack is as unpretentious as the crumbling childhood home that he has to flee. Ava as fierce and steady as the snowstorms that bellow around them. These are real people, rooted in life, that could easily be you or I if our circumstances were suddenly reverse.
While the plot was muddled and some of the villainous presences seemed to bleed into one another, I'm speaking of Bardem and in the man in the top-hat, there is a payoff for making it to the end. With a finale arc that will both deflate your spirit and keep your heart soaring, Anderson has a formidable voice that breathes some much-needed realness into the often dramatized, and easily mocked, young adult arena.