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A review by usbsticky
Lullaby Road by James Anderson
3.0
I got this from the crime/thriller section but it's more like drama. The story centers around Ben, a long distance truck driver, the route he drives, the derelict towns he serves and the odd and hermit like people he meets and delivers to. In the huge American west, there are definitely dead towns where people have moved away and people who choose to live in the middle of nowhere to avoid other people or just to get away. I actually checked out Utah State Route 117 on Google Maps but it's not as desolate as it says in the book; it's much shorter, doesn't intersect Highway 191, greener, much more lived on and has a lot of houses/farms on it.
The story and setting was quite depressing but all the same was a bit mesmerizing. The book is a continuation of an earlier book. You don't need to have read the first one though. The story starts off with a young child and a baby foisted upon him as he starts his route. Then we get to meet a disparate collection of folks as he delivers merchandise. Later on there is a hit and run and more events unfold.
I would have liked this book more had it been better written. However the author has turned to this method of writing where he tries to keep people in suspense by not being clear about what he writes and not fully describing events so you have to guess what happened. This is not good writing. I ended up skipping swathes of the text where nothing happens and it's just half a page of words trying to evoke suspense. Apart from that, I liked the characters. This is definitely a low key book; if you're looking for a thriller you will be disappointed but if you are looking for books about depressing towns in the American west, this is it.
I got this book as a free ARC.
The story and setting was quite depressing but all the same was a bit mesmerizing. The book is a continuation of an earlier book. You don't need to have read the first one though. The story starts off with a young child and a baby foisted upon him as he starts his route. Then we get to meet a disparate collection of folks as he delivers merchandise. Later on there is a hit and run and more events unfold.
I would have liked this book more had it been better written. However the author has turned to this method of writing where he tries to keep people in suspense by not being clear about what he writes and not fully describing events so you have to guess what happened. This is not good writing. I ended up skipping swathes of the text where nothing happens and it's just half a page of words trying to evoke suspense. Apart from that, I liked the characters. This is definitely a low key book; if you're looking for a thriller you will be disappointed but if you are looking for books about depressing towns in the American west, this is it.
I got this book as a free ARC.