Title: The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
Genre: Mystery, contemporary & crime
Expected Publication: March 28th 2017
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group/The Dial Press
Format: Kindle
Pages: 400
“After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter, Loo, to Olympus, Massachusetts. There, in his late wife’s hometown, Hawley finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at school and grows curious about her mother’s mysterious death. Haunting them both are twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past—a past that eventually spills over into his daughter’s present, until together they must face a reckoning yet to come. This father-daughter epic weaves back and forth through time and across America, from Alaska to the Adirondacks. Both a coming-of-age novel and a literary thriller, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley explores what it means to be a hero, and the cost we pay to protect the people we love most.”
A spoiler free review of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley: A Novel by Hannah Tinti
3stars
*I received a free arc of of this book from NetGalley and it’s publisher, Random House Publishing Group/The Dial Press, in an exchange for an honest review.*
Here’s the thing about this book, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t especially like it? I don’t really have a strong opinion of this book. I found the story itself to be interesting enough to finish, but I wasn’t exactly on the edge of my seat while reading. I wasn’t as invested as I wish I had been.
I did however like how this book has an almost episodic narrative. With each chapter alternating between Loo (present) and Hawley (past). I found Hawley’s chapters to be particularly interesting, as each one tells the story of how he got each of his twelve bullet holes.
The story was well written and engaging but overall this book just wasn’t for me. I think maybe someone older and wiser would appreciate the book more than me. I would recommend it to readers who like character driven plots, family centered dramas or revenge stories as this book manages to be all three.
