Reviews

Eli the Good by Silas House

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mrsdaliborreads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad 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

5.0

aoosterwyk's review against another edition

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5.0

This was a lovely book. The writing is superb and it was no effort to fall into the pages. I predict we will be seeing a lot more historical fiction from the Vietnam War as we gain more distance and perspective on that time.
The great thing about this book is how the author allows us to see everyone's perspective on the war and the defensiveness and the miscommunication that occurs with an event so controversial and personal. Despite this one big elephant in the room, this is a family to love and treasure. The author has created a main character who,under the guise of spying, allows us to see inside the dynamics of the family to what motivates the characters. Each one is special and unique and I can't wait to read something else by Silas House!

brinysea's review against another edition

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4.0

Took me two tries to finish it, but once I got in, I was hooked.

kamckim's review against another edition

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3.0

I really enjoy reading Silas House because he immediately transports me to beautiful times and places. It is no different with this novel, set in the Summer of '76. Eli has a tremendous story to tell, and the plot and subplot are rich and believable. The three star rating is for the author's excessive overuse of the word, "gloaming." Once is enough, and you should probably be James Still, Lee Smith, or maybe Ron Rash. This was a beautiful, tender coming-of-age story. There is also a lot to be appreciated about incorporation of various narrative techniques and shifts in POV, especially nice was the use of letters home from Vietnam from Eli's father to his mother.

joniallison23's review against another edition

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5.0

Places exist in this world that hold a sense of power and wonder over the people who love them. The town of Refuge, the setting of The Book of Eli by Silas House, is such a place. In the summer of 1976, Eli Book ages well beyond his actual time on earth. He may be 10 years old, but by the end of the summer, he is an old ten-year old. Eli spends his summer struggling with a father who suffers from the aftershocks of fighting in Vietnam, a 16-year-old sister who is rebelling, and a best friend who has been abandoned by her mother. Through it all, Eli seeks solace from the natural world around him and an aunt who has returned to rural Kentucky from Washington, D.C. It is from the wisdom of this aunt that Eli learns to value the place of his childhood as she tells him that "there's not a tree in the world like the ones you grow up with. You never forget them, and the trees remember you." He also learns that "it was better to cry than to suck it up and go around conjuring hate in your heart." The powerfully descriptive writing of Silas House left me with chills despite the rising temperatures outside my own mountain windows. I finished this tremendous book with both a sense of awe in House's power to transport me to Refuge, Kentucky and a sense of sadness that so many of my own students, this week preparing for the end of grade reading tests, may never experience the power a great piece of fiction has to pick you up out of your own life and drop you for a time in someone else's.

veliciajerus's review against another edition

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5.0

This is a book, the greatest gift you can give some (as Nell said), and one I am glad to have read and own a personal copy of, too. It is a story of love, understand, forgiveness, rebellion, friendship, family, Vietnam vets, PTSD, and how children can absorb it all and still want to be Good. I sat at work, listening to the audio book and reading along, and crying with the characters. More than once it made me love them so deeply I cried, but not in the every-teenage-girl-is-dying-A-Walk-To-Remember kind of ways. These characters are full, reflective, real, and now forever a part of me. I hope a part of Eli is now a part of me.