#thegreatalone

"Wild. That's how I describe it all. My love. My life. Alaska. Truthfully, it's all the same to me. Alaska doesn't attract many; most are too tame to handle life up here. But when she gets her hooks in you, she digs deep and holds on, and you become hers. Wild. A lover of cruel beauty and splendid isolation."

“You don't stop loving a person when they're hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you.”

Book Review | The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah has a direct connection to my heart strings - so far I am 0 for 3 in crying so profusely that I had to take a minute with her books, and this one is obviously no exception.

The Great Alone takes place in the backdrop of the frontier of Alaska in the Vietnam war. Our main character Leni has a complicated home life, with a father riddled with some kind of PTSD, and a battered mother that always takes him back.

Part coming of age, and part survival story, The Great Alone is a story of human resilience, the kindness of neighbours, and what people will do for love, against all odds.

I did have to at one point put the book down (metaphorically speaking, as I was listening to the audiobook) and google whether there was a happy ending coming, because the heartbreak was so deep - spoiler alert, there is in fact a happy ending, thank god.

Hannah's characters are so deeply dimensional, that I felt like Leni was my closest friend. There is such a rich, isolated, beautiful, deeply terrifying reality to the isolation of Alaska, the closeness of community, the difficulty of growing up, and the terror of falling in love for the first time. Highly recommend this book.