The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah TintiMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This review is also found on Goodreads! :)
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Actual Rating: 3.5 stars
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Tinti writes beautiful prose, but to be completely honest, I struggled with this book. I could not relate to neither Loo nor Hawley. They've been through a lot, particularly Hawley, which makes him so compelling and difficult at the same time. He makes for one of the most interesting characters I've read recently, but he's so complex and doesn't make for an easy read.To be frank, I am not really comfortable with guns--they've always held a sense of danger and violence for me. And this book did not help repress that fear. Because of the characters' and plot's heavy dependence on guns, I'm wary for the entire time I was reading the book.
Halfway through the book, I felt duped. I was expecting this book to be...magical, or at least I would find constant reference to classical myths as one of the blurb said, but I found none of that. So yeah, I guess, it was unmet expectations. I was irritated at how at one point, the story was veering towards the YA genre. If you haven't noticed, I no longer hold contemporary YAs to the highest regard. They don't hold much "believability" and being identifiable for me anymore. (I don't know if it's just because I've grown out of it, or there just aren't any exceptional YAs lately.) So this book shifting towards YA at one point was sigh-inducing.
A redeeming feature for me (by that I meant, the reason why I didn't give this an even lower rating) was towards the end of the book;
Bullet Number Eleven
was the most beautiful chapter of this book. In hindsight, it may look sloppy, but the build-up towards it was paced well, and it became the quintessential manifestation of Loo and Hawley's relationship.
--Disclaimer: Excerpts below are from the book. Copyright © 2017 by Hannah Tinti:
It was easier to fall back on what he knew than try to change, even though he understood things weren't right anymore.
Changing where you were could change how much you mattered.
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