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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Violence and Pregnancy
Minor: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Physical abuse, and Self harm
emily_koopmann's review against another edition
2.75
Graphic: Addiction and Domestic abuse
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Rather than being headed with numbers Abundance’s chapters are headed with the amount of money Henry has at the time. It’s an effective way of highlighting his desperate financial reality, something the book starkly portrays. Ketchup sachets are forever changed in my eyes.
The book has two main timelines. The first unfolds in little more than 24 hours - Junior’s birthday and some of the subsequent day. Interspersed are chapter’s showing how Henry came to be at this point in his life. I have mixed feelings about this. I was much more invested in the present day storyline and found myself irritated when we jumped back in time. In addition the past storyline highlights some poor choices made by Henry including drug dealing and domestic violence. Which forced me to think. And isn’t that what a good book should do? Why should Henry be a perfect character to warrant sympathy, empathy, compassion? Shouldn’t everyone regardless of their background and choices, be entitled to a life of dignity with ready access to at least basic food and shelter?
In the present storyline I was simultaneously rooting for Henry (if only he could catch one simple break) and wanting to rail against some of his choices. Again this forced me to ponder. Why might someone in Henry’s position not seek emergency housing, food stamps and the like? What barriers discourage people from accessing these services? How do you make good choices if you don’t have good options?
Abundance is a well-told story about a flawed man trying to do his best within a broken system. It highlights the brutal yet everyday realities of poverty, the impossible choices it forces people to make, the resulting, pressure,desperation, degradation.
Graphic: Addiction and Violence
keatynbergsten's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Death of parent, and Alcohol
deedireads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
TL;DR REVIEW:
Abundance is a book that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to — humbling and frustrating, it’s an empathetic look inside the trap of poverty in America today. I think you should read it.
For you if: You are willing to be uncomfortable in order to have your eyes opened a little wider.
FULL REVIEW:
I read Abundance after it was longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. I probably wouldn’t have heard of it or picked it up otherwise, but I’m glad I did. I’m also glad it’s being recognized, particularly by the NBA, because Jakob Guanzon has written a humbling, frustrating, deeply modern American novel.
The book is about a man named Henry, a formerly incarcerated single dad who is currently living out of his pickup truck with his young son. It starts on his son’s birthday, which he celebrates with a carefully budgeted trip to McDonald’s and a stay in a motel with a real bed and bathtub. Things are looking up because Henry has a job interview the next day. But then his son springs a fever and starts to worsen, and Henry has to desperately grasp for control, optimism — and enough money to eat, get to his interview, and help his son. Throughout the book, we also jump backward in time to learn about Henry’s adolescence, start to his family, struggle with drugs, incarceration, and eventual homelessness.
Henry is a wildly imperfect protagonist (which is its own important narrative choice), but you can’t help but root for him. Even though he’s often made bad choices, he’s deeply human and trying so hard to do right by his son, build something, and just get through the day. And so this novel does exactly what it sets out to do — reading it is a frustrating, humbling experience. You have the sense that if Henry could only catch one single break, he’d be able to get a handle on things and be okay. And you remember this is the lived reality for so many people stuck in the cycle of poverty in the US, and you remember that so many of them never do catch a break, and they live in this state of constant stress every day; it doesn’t get to end after 250 pages that cover two days.
And then there’s the brilliant structural choice to organize the books into chapters named for the amount of money Henry has in his pocket at any given moment, underscoring that number’s tenuous, constant presence at the front of his mind — how critical it is to his existence, how he is never allowed to forget it.
If you have a roof over your head and food in your refrigerator and the ability to buy your children Advil when they are sick, this book will force you to remember and sit with that privilege.
I will be thinking about the end of this one for a really, really long time.
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Violence
amressing's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Guanzon's character development is phenomenal and I felt myself being both pulled in and repulsed by Henry throughout the book.
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual violence, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
Minor: Blood and Vomit