Published in 2011, this is by Kristin Hannah.

She's an extraordinarily popular author, whose 25 novels have sold millions (this one was her 19th...).

The overwhelming majority of the reviews I've checked out on the internet are positive.

And yet I didn't like it, and won't be looking for more.


You don't mind not liking something if it cost only MYR 2..

The story, in a nutshell (beware spoilers), takes us to the Seattle area and the year 2000, when Lexi Baill (a motherless child of the "system", who is eventually lodged with a long-lost relative) makes friends with the rich, cosseted Farraday family. Jude is the control-freak mother (and the author's dedication admits that she too had the characteristics of the dreaded "helicopter mom"); Miles is the easy-going dad; and Zach and Mia are their adored twins (Zach is Mr Popular, confident and feted; Mia is shy, struggles to be included, and generally sails along in her brother's wake). Mia strikes up a friendship with Lexi, who's also a bit of an outcast.

Fast forward to 2003/4. This is the kids' Senior Year, which is apparently an ultra-big deal in the US. Jude attends the "Journey Through Senior Year" parents' meeting, where the police officer tells the daunted mums and dads: "Some of you might think that the biggest danger facing them now is that colleges will reject them, but there's a new threat: ... Partying... Let them know how dangerous partying can be."

By now, it's not only Mia-and-Lexi as mates, but also Zach-and-Lexi as boyfriend-and-girlfriend. And they party. Things have been a bit strained in the Farraday household because the twins have been accepted into an expensive college that Lexi can't afford to attend. There are lots of potentially interesting questions about who is going to accompany whom on the student journey, and to where.

But we don't get to follow through on this because there's melodrama. All three of our youngsters get drunk at a party, and Lexi, the most sober, attempts to drive them home -- with fatal consequences for Mia, and dire consequences for Lexi, who ends up in jail. Where she finds she's pregnant with Zach's kid. Whom she names Grace, and gives up to his care.

Then we're in 2010; Lexi is out; but she can't bring herself to turn her back on Grace, especially as a bit of covert spying tells her that the little girl isn't happy. This is partly because Jude is still a grief-stricken wreck, and can't regard the child -- who was born of the woman who "killed" her daughter, and looks like that lost daughter as well, thereby permanently emphasizing her loss -- with any degree of affection. Zach is a great father, but his medical studies mean that Grace is in the care of others a lot of the time. Some of these later sections are told from the perspective of the child, which comes across as awkward and artificial.

The ending, which feels a bit rushed (and more than a bit pat), sees Jude finally starting to shake off her grief-induced paralysis, and Zach and Lexi starting to test the waters of a revived relationship. At one point, a character muses: "Some endings simply couldn't be what you dreamed." But Hannah seems reluctant to follow through on this insight, and bottles out on the tough conclusion that would have made the book feel more grounded.


The Farradays would have lived in a much posher neighbourhood (and probably one that didn't lean...)

***

I know these things happen in life. I know all these people exist: Kids in the "system" who find it hard to believe the next relationship is not going to go belly-up like all the others (Barbara Kingsolver was brilliant on this in Demon Copperhead); teens who drink too much at parties, sometimes with fatal consequences; teens who accidentally get pregnant; mothers who try to control everything about their children's lives; and mothers who take years to emerge from grief at the death of their child.

But somehow the sheer weight of terrible things happening in this book is overwhelming. It's as though every lever is being pulled to induce the reader to reach for the hankies. It didn't seem to be leavened with anything... Not humour. Not social observation. Not broader context.

I felt that opportunities had been missed to further explore the dilemma over higher education choice (what you want, versus what you can afford). When the twins decide they'll follow Lexi to a more run-of-the-mill college, Jude tells this interloper: "If they don't go to USC they'll regret it, and sooner or later they'll blame you." Zach, meanwhile, has had it with his mother's butting in, and tells her: "You used to say that you wanted us to be happy, but that's only true when we do what you want us to do."

This was setting up a potentially interesting situation -- what do the haves do when their lives are intimately connected with the have-nots? -- but no, we leap right over all that to pursue the more lurid "partying" plot.

Hannah does give us glimpses of the gaps. Here's Lexi in prison, talking to her cellmate:

"'And this is Mia. The girl I ... killed.'
"Tamica took the picture of Mia, studied it. 'Pretty girl. Rich?'
"Lexi frowned. 'How'd you know that?'
"'You're here, ain't you?'"

And as Lexi finds out when she's released (before the happy-end vibes have taken over everything), it is very possible to have the right to do something (like have a supervised meeting with her child) but not the means to implement that right (ie, pay for the supervision).



***

Both the writing and the characters seemed a tad predictable to me.

True, it didn't help that I was reading Night Road at the same time as Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, which simply glows with sharply observed characters and social scenarios, and manages to be laugh-out-loud funny right in the middle of real tragedy.

And one final gripe: A particular bugbear of mine is descriptions of characters' clothing (and there were lots of these in Night Road...). Unless the outfit is relevant to the plot or the character, I just don't care whether someone's wearing white pants...

***

Not a hit with me, then. But I'm aware that I'm very much sailing against the stream... Hannah's fans are legion.