A review by senquezada29
All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle

5.0

This was a charming, realistic, loving, yet heartbreaking book. As someone who's struggled with loneliness his entire life, it was also terrifying in the sense that it laid out what a future of loneliness in elder years might look like. Some parts of the story were unrealistic and hard to believe (the quality of character of the members of the committee that Hubert co-founds was inspiring but I felt unrealistic), so that made me feel like yeah right, that wouldn't happen, but other parts of the story were incredibly realistic and very relatable (like Hubert's personality, his imperfect responses to difficult situations, and David's entire presence as a character w/ whose existence is unresolved). The twist at the end of Chapter 39 caught me by complete surprise and totally broke my heart, but it really added to the story perfectly and rounded out both Hubert as a character and the entire story by incorporating and intelligently discussing issues of depression, mental health, aging and racism. It was an incredible reminder that sometimes the people who appear the strongest in helping others are often the ones in most need of help w/ those same issues themselves. I highly recommend this book. The actual writing style by Gayle wasn't all that impressive, but the story absolutely was (if that makes any sense) and made me struggle to find things to criticize about the book.