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bailo2's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Full of contradictions—sparse and dense, alive and dead, lonely and comforting—like the desert itself
thebobsphere's review against another edition
3.0
A Million Heavens is my type of literary comfort food. That is, a book with multiple perspectives all crossing each other and then nicely tied up.
Soren is in a coma, and this affects a group of people connected to him; his father, his piano teacher, a person dating an older man, the mayor of the town he resides in, a girl, a wolf and a dead musician. All destinies are linked and it is up to the reader to make connections.
I’ve read many books like this so other than the narrative of the dead musician, which is brilliant, I found the rest of the novel to be ok. This was a solid read and time passed nicely. Brandon has a good writing style, a bit too Palahniuk at times but it didn’t hinder the reading experience. I’d recommend it to someone who’s just starting to get in this genre.
Soren is in a coma, and this affects a group of people connected to him; his father, his piano teacher, a person dating an older man, the mayor of the town he resides in, a girl, a wolf and a dead musician. All destinies are linked and it is up to the reader to make connections.
I’ve read many books like this so other than the narrative of the dead musician, which is brilliant, I found the rest of the novel to be ok. This was a solid read and time passed nicely. Brandon has a good writing style, a bit too Palahniuk at times but it didn’t hinder the reading experience. I’d recommend it to someone who’s just starting to get in this genre.
rocketiza's review against another edition
4.0
Brandon is a beautiful writer in the style of Tom Drury about small towns. Even though I hated the bejesus out of two esoteric narrative threads in this, one really completely unneeded, the rest of them were good enough to get me through.
carolbsmith's review against another edition
4.0
I read books strictly for the entertainment factor, and this book certainly entertained me. I only gave it 4 stars because it didn't have a huge emotional impact, but it was still good. I loved the ending!
bookgardendc's review against another edition
5.0
This book was 4 star until the last 20 pages. I'm not even convinced it's a 5 star except it is one if those rare books that makes me feel a range of conflicting emotions along with a smile as I close the back cover, and it deserves credit for that. The perspective is so beautiful. There is fear and redemption and sorrow and music and lots of hope. I really liked this book.
jmcphers's review against another edition
3.0
If John Brandon writes like anyone, he writes like Kurt Vonnegut. The content is completely different, of course, but the structure of the sentence is remarkably similar. Short, simple sentences, often beginning with the name of a character, full of matter-of-fact detail, and frequent little bursts of philosophy.
My first book by Brandon was Citrus County, and while that one was a page-turner, this one has very low tension. If it were a movie, it would be one of those indie flicks with lingering camera shots of squinty-eyed actors sitting in a small town gazing meaningfully out a window or doing something poetic by themselves. This book has lots of little spurts of plot growing all over the place but in the end it is (to me) an atmospheric work.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Brandon has gotten more adept at deftly telling a lot of stories at once. There are many characters here and he cuts back and forth between them a lot. That and the easy-reading descriptions make reading this book about as easy as watching television, except in this case you have the vague sense that someone wiser than you is trying to get something across about people, and about hope, and about waiting. No morals or philosophizing here, just a few hundred pages of meditation.
I think Brandon could do all this and write a page-turner, too (because he did, in fact, do all this and write a page-turner too) so I'm only giving this three stars. But it's not because I'm not a fan of Mr. Brandon's. I'm down to one unread book by him, and I'm going to savor it.
My first book by Brandon was Citrus County, and while that one was a page-turner, this one has very low tension. If it were a movie, it would be one of those indie flicks with lingering camera shots of squinty-eyed actors sitting in a small town gazing meaningfully out a window or doing something poetic by themselves. This book has lots of little spurts of plot growing all over the place but in the end it is (to me) an atmospheric work.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Brandon has gotten more adept at deftly telling a lot of stories at once. There are many characters here and he cuts back and forth between them a lot. That and the easy-reading descriptions make reading this book about as easy as watching television, except in this case you have the vague sense that someone wiser than you is trying to get something across about people, and about hope, and about waiting. No morals or philosophizing here, just a few hundred pages of meditation.
I think Brandon could do all this and write a page-turner, too (because he did, in fact, do all this and write a page-turner too) so I'm only giving this three stars. But it's not because I'm not a fan of Mr. Brandon's. I'm down to one unread book by him, and I'm going to savor it.
natesea's review against another edition
4.0
Author John Brandon has written another successful, sparse, paced novel about basic people leading complicated lives in an unforgiving, dying town. A million heavens moves along with each seemingly separate character struggling with a specific situation, but slowly brings them together under the same big starry sky. Separate circumstances, but the same wish for connection, healing, and meaning. A touch of the fantastic, or stretch of reality, provides a welcome new element for Brandon's mastery of telling small-town tales. Moving from the backwards south in previous works, to the unforgiving desert in Heavens, Brandon has produced another winner.
emilyrdean's review against another edition
3.0
The story is told from the perspectives of many different characters, switching every two to three pages to a new point-of-view. The characters range from a wolf to a dead man, presumably trapped in purgatory, and all that you would encounter in between. Set in a small town in New Mexico, each our cast members are trying to find some kind of inner peace. Few are directly linked, but all have some string that ties them together. I enjoyed the spiraling way the story is told through the different characters, but I felt there was little resolution when it all came together in the end. There just seemed to be something missing.
whats_margaret_reading's review against another edition
4.0
Told in alternating chapters from the points of view of a motley group of residents of a town in New Mexico, A Million Heavens presents a cast of characters that are surprisingly and delightfully messed up. They come from damaged pasts and are trying to move forward. An interesting character to add is the wolf who roams the town and becomes infatuated with the music that one character transcribes from her dead boyfriend, who is currently in a waiting room of an afterlife. The main pair of characters are Soren and his father, a boy in a coma and a father who insists on being there every day in case Soren wakes up. Soren is the thread that ties this group together, giving this novel a common thread and interest.
An addition to the characters loosely connected by events type genre, this novel is impressive in its characterizations and span of thoughts, from a concerned parent, mayor, and college almost drop out to the wolf.
An addition to the characters loosely connected by events type genre, this novel is impressive in its characterizations and span of thoughts, from a concerned parent, mayor, and college almost drop out to the wolf.
sinnylong's review against another edition
5.0
I think maybe some of the reviewers who didn't like this book either don't like this KIND of book or don't know how to read this kind of book. There are a lot of negative comments regarding the "disjointed plot line," etc. Yes, like many other authors have done in the past and will continue to do in the future, Brandon switches between several inhabitants of a prescribed geographical area. And then he ties all the disparate stories together in the end. For me, in this case, it works. The writing is varied and exciting and the characters complex and moving, two things Brandon may have been proving he could manage based on critiques of his first two novels (terse prose and flat characters). Truth be told, I read A Million Heavens while burning with fever, so perhaps I was more open to the kaleidoscopic structure of the book because my defenses were down. Whatever the reasons, I liked the book and would recommend it.