Juliana (philippaj) - reviewed on 4/17/2011 + 136 more book reviews

~ Highly recommend; a book of quiet strength, about the choices we make and the indelible effect they have (4 stars) ~

This book was often heartbreakingly sad, but a wonderful read that I highly recommend. While CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER took me awhile to get into, I read the last 250 pages in one sitting late into the night. From the beginning there are certain things the reader pretty much knows, but there is still a great deal of mystery in the story. Franklin does a good job of achieving a nice balance between the two and of drawing you steadily in until you feel that a need to know the truth about these characters and what happened.

Silas and Larry seem to be relatively clear and simple characters at the beginning, but their complexities and dimensions are subtly revealed as the story progresses, the book being mainly about these two men and how their lives intertwined and connected. The book flashes between the past and the present until they eventually converge, but the transitions are done smoothly and there is not so much back and forth as to leave the reader feeling lost - several chapters go by before you return to the other time period.

The book is a difficult read emotionally due to the overwhelming sadness woven throughout the story. The characters and their lives often border on the tragic, though in simple and real ways. Loneliness, exclusion, isolation, loss, regret, longing, guilt - these things seem to define the characters' lives, but there is also a strength that we see in many of them and in their ability to continue and survive. You sense Larry's shame and longing to belong when he is made fun of or tries to fit in with the kids at school and you feel his loneliness as he sits in his auto shop everyday without a single customer or anyone to even talk to. Ina (Larry's mom) and Alice (Silas') were also very tragic characters and though seemingly small in the context of the overall plot, the boys' relationships with their mothers (both past and present) were very well-crafted and added a certain depth to all four characters.

One of the biggest dilemmas with these types of stories is how to finish them - at least that's how I feel as a reader - and as I approached the end of the book I was torn between whether I wanted a tragically poetic end or one of resolution and closure - which has the additional danger of bordering on the corny and overly sentimental. I obviously don't want to give anything away, so I will just say that the ending Franklin gives us was, in my view, absolutely perfect.

BOTTOM LINE:
I definitely recommend CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER and also think it would be ideal for a book group, providing a wealth of topics and issues to discuss and debate. The plot draws you in and the story was well-done; it makes you think about the different choices one makes and how certain decisions can impact other people's lives, sometimes indelibly. In my opinion, the characters are the book's greatest strength: you end up truly caring about them and feeling invested in their lives. Without some type of connection to a book's characters, its story can only affect you so much and take you so far, so I think that when an author is able to create both characters that pull at some part of you and a story that makes you debate and think and feel, he or she has done what they are supposed to do as writers.
[This review is of an advanced copy format of the book]

(Note: There were more than several typos throughout the book, however since this was an advanced reader copy, I am assuming/hoping they were fixed in the final edition.)

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