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richardwells's review against another edition
4.0
I love libraries, and I love librarians who take a chance on books that may not make it to the best-seller lists. (I don't know how they choose, but if anyone would like to enlighten me, I'd appreciate it.) Here in Seattle/King County we have great librarians. In the past year I've taken a chance on five books that ended up to be 4/5 star titles. All from the library, all off the shelves on a whim - lucky me. A Million Heavens makes it six.
A child prodigy who taps the universal chords for all of 30 seconds falls into a coma. The six or so other characters tracked in this novel are all touched by that incident - some more directly than others, but all within the orbit. John Brandon does a terrific job of giving life to each of the characters, and a few others on the periphery. This is a book about the good we do to and for one another, even with some bad mixed in, and I think the entire work is a love hymn of sorts. It's the most optimistic read of the year for me. It also takes place between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and I love the SW as much as I love libraries.
It lost a star in its ultimate resolution, but it kept me hanging on to the very end, even if the ending confused me. Ah well, on the great whole it's a book to enjoy, and to think about. Well worth the read.
A child prodigy who taps the universal chords for all of 30 seconds falls into a coma. The six or so other characters tracked in this novel are all touched by that incident - some more directly than others, but all within the orbit. John Brandon does a terrific job of giving life to each of the characters, and a few others on the periphery. This is a book about the good we do to and for one another, even with some bad mixed in, and I think the entire work is a love hymn of sorts. It's the most optimistic read of the year for me. It also takes place between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and I love the SW as much as I love libraries.
It lost a star in its ultimate resolution, but it kept me hanging on to the very end, even if the ending confused me. Ah well, on the great whole it's a book to enjoy, and to think about. Well worth the read.
dylannleigh's review against another edition
4.0
I am super conflicted on how to rate this. I didn't like it as much as Citrus County. It was disjointed and there were too many characters, too many things happening, too much to catch my attention as a reader. But the writing was magical and the ending was perfect. He tied it together absolutely beautifully.
sarahjsnider's review against another edition
2.0
I'm caught between 2 and 3 stars here. If the author could have trimmed the peripheral fat and only included the perspectives that really tied together, this would have been excellent, and only about 125 pages. It was all right, and I appreciated some of the beautiful prose, and I listened to Calexico while reading and tried to get into the desert mindset, but it didn't really work for me.
cr91958's review
5.0
I LOVED this book. Lively and lyrical storytelling with a simple profundity. The author's sparse and poetic style reminds me of Richard Brautigan. There were gem like lines that actually took my breath away.The book consists of loosely interwoven and multi-perspective vignettes placed in the desert setting of New Mexico, with all that the desert gives and all it takes away. Thematically, this story centers around dis/connection, search for meaning and love but never hits you over the head. This is the first time I have read this author and I am on my way to the library to seek out his other books.
castorstarr's review
3.0
3
This book is about loss and life and your reaction to both. Following a recently divorced woman, a tragic teenaged girl, a mayor of a failing town, the father of a possible piano prodigy now in a coma, a wolf losing his place in the world, a dead boy forced to write music, and many more, it sheds light on the arcs of life without seeming to care much if the reader follows.
I liked this book in general. I think the characters were interesting, particularly Arn and Reggie, but it just wasn't compelling. I think part of that was the multitude of characters and the way they were painstakingly forced to connect. It felt too big, in too small a thing. I'm not saying I wanted more story, I just wanted one that was able to breathe.
It felt unsatisfying. A lot of these arcs never finished, and the one (of two) that did truly felt as if it had finished in a way that felt unearned and uninteresting. This, to me, is one of those stories written to say "things are bad sometimes, and we need to be realistic" which, a lot of the time, is boring and needlessly dreary or edgy. It toed the line on that quite a bit, and the ending made me feel as if it lost its way entirely.
Good writing, some interesting thoughts, but I was pretty much ready to be done reading it by the halfway point.
This book is about loss and life and your reaction to both. Following a recently divorced woman, a tragic teenaged girl, a mayor of a failing town, the father of a possible piano prodigy now in a coma, a wolf losing his place in the world, a dead boy forced to write music, and many more, it sheds light on the arcs of life without seeming to care much if the reader follows.
I liked this book in general. I think the characters were interesting, particularly Arn and Reggie, but it just wasn't compelling. I think part of that was the multitude of characters and the way they were painstakingly forced to connect. It felt too big, in too small a thing. I'm not saying I wanted more story, I just wanted one that was able to breathe.
It felt unsatisfying. A lot of these arcs never finished, and the one (of two) that did truly felt as if it had finished in a way that felt unearned and uninteresting. This, to me, is one of those stories written to say "things are bad sometimes, and we need to be realistic" which, a lot of the time, is boring and needlessly dreary or edgy. It toed the line on that quite a bit, and the ending made me feel as if it lost its way entirely.
Good writing, some interesting thoughts, but I was pretty much ready to be done reading it by the halfway point.
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