Book Review: The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

  Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Gallery Books, via #Netgalley, for blog review purposes. No compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about them. All opinions are my own. 

Synopsis:

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

Driving without a chosen destination, she stops to rest in Ithaca. Her only plan is to survive, but as she looks for work, she finds a kindred sense of belonging at Cafe Decadence, the local coffee shop. Still, somehow, it doesn’t make sense to her that life could be this easy. The more she falls in love with her friends in Ithaca, the more she can’t shake the feeling that she’ll hurt them the way she’s been hurt.

As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be.

This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.

Review:

This is one of those books that will stay with you for awhile after reading it. It's a reminder of how we let appearances deceive us, and when we stop and look within, find the true treasures among us. As April flees a bad situation, she finds herself in an unlikely place. But the kindness of others suddenly props her up, and gives her the life she has always wanted. But in the same way we know fairy tales end, April feels the end of her time in Ithaca, and flees from the life she has made. Along her travels, she will find loss, pain and hurt again, but ultimately, those who were meant to be in her life find her, and we, along with April, realize finding your tribe isn't just a saying, it's what we should all strive for!

About the Author:

Allison Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Stay, Why Can’t I Be You, and Swimming for Sunlight. Her short fiction has been published in the Summerset Review and Slice, and nonfiction in the anthologies, I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship and Author in Progress. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, with her husband, Jeremy, and their fearful, faithful German Shepherd, Stella.