Reviews

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

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erinsut's review against another edition

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emotional

4.0

jawolffe's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-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

4.25

meagan_young's review against another edition

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4.0

This wasn’t quite the book I thought it would be. April’s music was barely a part of the story, it was literally just meeting different people/boyfriends back to back to back. It was very sweet though, I loved the ending and the found family.

sakeenahn26's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I expected to really enjoy this book, but when I first started it the choppy writing style threw me off. No matter, I figured it maybe wasn't the right time for it, and I put it down for a few weeks. I came back to it and started from the beginning, and while the writing style worked fine, I felt that April was just not an interesting main character. I feel like she was meant to be written as a sort of quirky, rebellious sixteen year old, and while she's sixteen that makes sense. As she ages, however, you somewhat expect her to grow out of it, which she never really does. When writing one of these quirky-type characters, there's a very fine line to walk between the voice you want the character to have and the overly edgy self insert characters we all saw in 2016, and I think there's quite a few times April went a little too far over the line. Still, I wanted to finish it because I desparately believed that she would learn from her mistakes and start making better choices. And…she didn't?

Every time you think she's found a place or person to settle down with, she leaves. She simply refuses to have an actual conversation with anyone in the book, which again is fine when she's 16 and just run away from home, but maybe not so much when she's pregnant and engaged to the man who thinks he's the father. And the ending? It's sweet that all the people in her life who were important to her came together, but it felt so weird? I felt like I was watching the ending of a Disney movie. It just felt really unrealistic, and from a writing perspective it didn't feel earned at all? Maybe we as the readers deserved to see all these characters come back, but April as a character hadn't grown in any way from the beginning of the book. Her voice, her ideals, her worldview, everything was exactly the same from beginning to end. I think it would've been far more effective if she had actually had a conversation with Robert to explain the situation, stayed with him and Ethan, maybe even moved to Ithaca and reconnected with Carly there. At that point, having Marge visit doesn't feel so unrealistic. April getting her happy ending feels deserved, it feels necessary, it's satisfying.

The way the book currently ends, it just fell really short and was so underwhelming. I apologize, because I really did want to like it, but it just wasn't for me I fear

paigewrasse's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Content Warnings

hellokaley's review against another edition

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hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

A coming-of-age story that I think was a little too young for me personally. I’m not huge on the YA genre in general, so I’ll completely chalk this up to personal preference.

I liked certain parts of April’s journey and although there were some quite problematic storylines, she was really just a 16-year old girl who had overcome quite difficult circumstances including abandonment from her parents.

I enjoyed the found family theme and felt the end was very sweet. And as always, Julia Whelan did a wonderful job with the audiobook narration.

Content Warnings