Review: Night Road, by Kristin Hannah

I chose to read Kristin Hannah's newest book, Night Road, based on the fact that I was still in light-reading mode and had enjoyed Firefly Lane well enough. Plus, it happened to be sitting on the shelf at the library when I got there.

NR is the story of a foster child, Lexi, her shy best friend, Mia, Mia's popular twin brother, Zach and their overzealous helicopter mother, Jude, with the novel's plot spilled out alternately by Lexi and Jude. I'm not going to go too much further into the plot, because I'm guessing that you can already see at least partly where this is going. While there is one event that is slightly surprising, the rest of it is so predictable that I wanted to scream. In fact, there are whole sections of this book that I'm sure I've read somewhere else, SKIP THIS NEXT PART IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK

particularly the part where Lexi pleads guilty and goes to prison out of guilt for a car accident - I've read that same thing somewhere before - Jodi Piccoult, maybe? it's going to drive me crazy trying to figure that out

SAFE TO COME BACK NOW

My point is, the story is utterly predictable, and that was part of its downfall. Young love, disaster, self-loathing, martyrdom, personal awakenings, redemption, the end. The characters were also just tired stereotypes, Jude in particular. Really, though, the biggest downfall of the book was in the last quarter, where things just perfectly fall into place after becoming ridiculously screwed up. Hannah skips whole years of the characters' lives, and then doesn't do a great job at reeling the reader back into caring about who they've become. I believe that the story would have benefitted greatly from chapters told by Zach, particularly, since he plays a major role in the story and yet we know very little about his inner thoughts. In addition, had it been condensed into something more concise, and then had more depth added to the characters in the last quarter of the story, plus a less tied-with-a-bow ending, it might have been pretty good.

So, it doesn't take a genius to see that I'm not a big fan of this book. It started out well, and I found Lexi's character in particular interesting, but then the whole thing devolved into formulaic writing, and I crawled through the last (and utterly unbelievable) part of the story, almost just to see how bad it would get. It got pretty bad, people. That having been said, Kristin Hannah is an immensely popular writer, and I think whether you like this story or not will depend on what you look for in a story; if you *like* this formula, or you don't read a large number of books (and thus aren't tired of it), then you'll probably enjoy the story. If you do read a lot though, or like variety in your materials, this is one to skip unless you're on the beach and probably will be mostly skimming.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars. An initially interesting novel that turns into a rehash of tired character and plot ideas.