The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah tells the story of the Allbrights, a family who moves to Alaska in 1974 to attempt to outrun the difficulties the Vietnam veteran father is having in his reintegration to non-military life.

The first 80% of this book is amazing. You can really feel the joy in their arrival to Alaska in the full summer. You can feel the oppressiveness as winter comes upon them and the Allbrights have less and less money and fewer and fewer resources. You can feel the father's slowly disintegrating mental health and the mother and daughter's fight to hold on to their own safety. Hannah does an amazing job of really showing us the town and how the divisions in the town are long-standing and how they play in dealing with the Allbrights.

And then there's the ending. It's just...too much.  There's an accident, a murder, an unplanned pregnancy, a long-term disability. It was like watching General Hospital at the end. I thought the book had been thoughtful and well-paced and then this crazy, insane ending happened. I don't know. I felt kind of meh about The Nightingale and I wanted to love this book, but somehow the whole thing just made me feel like Hannah took some time with it early on and then just wanted to see if anyone would finish it if it she filled it with nonsense at the end.

If you want a book with similar themes on family and loss, read We Were the Mulvaneys instead.