This book is absolutely stunning. Cory Anderson just shot herself straight to the top of my Watch List for upcoming novels. Wow. This debut novel is clean and sharp. Beautiful and fragile as a snowflake, yet cuts like an icicle. Set in the winter in Idaho, it makes sense why a winter scene was in the forefront of my mind as I read. But that's exactly how this book made me feel - like I was standing on a track in the hushed silence of a winter snow, one of those days that you can just FEEL the beauty of the world around you. The snow glittering like diamonds, the world so bright it hurts your eyes. I could faintly, far away, hear that train whistle blowing and I knew that it was going to break my heart in just a few short moments, but I could not tear my gaze away from the beauty around me. That is exactly what reading this book was like.
We see Jack for what he is right from the start. We know this tough luck, resourceful kid is a good seed in a rotten world. We know that he has learned to deal with life far sooner than he should have had to, and we know he'd do anything to spare his brother Matty that same fate. And yet we also see him reluctantly open his heart to Ava, although his instincts told him not to. Sometimes fate has other ideas for us though.
I told a friend of mine recently that this book slayed me. And I was not exaggerating. This book is a gem in all ways and I am so grateful to have received a copy. I think it's best summed up by the following excerpt:
"He was right. What you put in your heart will make you hurt. But it will be the most spectacular kind of hurt. It will light you up and burn you. It will knock you down. It will break you apart. And it will make you different."
Thank you Cory Anderson. You did burn and break me. And I loved every minute of it.
We see Jack for what he is right from the start. We know this tough luck, resourceful kid is a good seed in a rotten world. We know that he has learned to deal with life far sooner than he should have had to, and we know he'd do anything to spare his brother Matty that same fate. And yet we also see him reluctantly open his heart to Ava, although his instincts told him not to. Sometimes fate has other ideas for us though.
I told a friend of mine recently that this book slayed me. And I was not exaggerating. This book is a gem in all ways and I am so grateful to have received a copy. I think it's best summed up by the following excerpt:
"He was right. What you put in your heart will make you hurt. But it will be the most spectacular kind of hurt. It will light you up and burn you. It will knock you down. It will break you apart. And it will make you different."
Thank you Cory Anderson. You did burn and break me. And I loved every minute of it.