The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

Someone told me that The People We Keep by Allison Larkin was a good audiobook, but I can't remember who. This is the way of NGS. Anyway, if it was you, thank you. It was narrated by Julia Whelan, whose book Thank You For Listening I also recently listened to, so I feel a bit like this is the year of me discovering Julia Whelan.

This book opens with April, a sixteen-year-old whose absentee father leaves her alone in an unheated motor home (without the motor) while he lives with a woman and her son. One night she steals a neighbor's car and has a successful open mic night performance, but the next day she has a fight with her father, and she leaves. We follow April for the next few years as she tries to find her place in the world, building relationships and a life. 

I have no excuse for how much I wanted to be listening to this book at every minute of the day. I was taking the dog for extra long walks just so that I could listen to more. I mean, it's December. Who wants an extra long walk?  There are things in this book that are deeply troubling, including a sexual relationship between a man in his mid-20s and a 16-year-old.  April has the same patterns over and over again and she never learns, never changes this pattern, and  never grows. 

But despite these things, I was really rooting for April. I wanted to know how her life would turn out. It feels real that she would make the same mistakes repeatedly because any teenager who had suffered the trauma that she suffered would. I was so upset at the ending, but the ending felt real to me. That would be how April's life turned out. 

I don't know, friends. It's a challenging story to read with physical and sexual abuse, drug use, and some pretty graphic scenes of violence. There's also only a slight mention of a dog, so that's a bummer. It's also an insightful look at the power of friendship, found family, and how hard it is to get ahead when you don't have a safety net to fall back on. 

4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

It hugs her waist and she's impossibly skinny, like you can't believe her stomach and intestines and all the other stuff that makes a person could actually fit in the tiny space of her. (timestamp 2:59:12)

I joke about this with my husband all the time. How do all the organs fit in his torso? I have questions. 

I wonder if maybe all you do is meet people and lose them and your smile fades the further you go because you have to carry the space they leave. Maybe it all just turns into old pictures on a bookshelf, engraved rings, memories of sticking stars to a ceiling and maybe the space gets bigger and heavier every year.  (timestamp 4:16:04)

I just felt like this was so sad for a sixteen-year-old to think. Sure, people come and go in your life, but how does a teenager know that?

Maybe when you get down to it, that's why everybody does everything. Maybe all we're doing is trying to be less alone. (timestamp 5:01:03)

Oh, boy. And this passage explains everything you need to know about the ending to this book.

He says it's amazing how much you can miss someone you've never even met...I say that it's amazing how much you can miss people you only got to be with for one tiny little perfect bit of time, how a place where you barely got to live can be the closest thing you've ever had to home. (timestamp 9:12:43)

I think they're both amazing. 

Ethan has job offers to teach at Oberlin, DePaul, and Ithaca... (timestamp 9:26:38)

Ha ha ha! This pulled me right out of everything. As if anyone would have three job offers, two of which are really great schools and the other is in Chicago. Clearly Allison Larkin has never been an academic. 

Hat mentions (why hats?)

"That's the stuff, man," he says, and mimes tipping a hat in their direction. (timestamp14:30)

Everyone collects themselves, pulling on hats and scarves, big sweaters, and secondhand coats.  (timestamp 23:41)

His hat is probably covering a receding hairline...(timestamp 2:51:00)

The campground man, with his flappy hat and ruddy beard...(timestamp 2:55:00)

When my teeth start to chatter, Adam takes his hat off and drops it on my head. (timestamp 4:31:58)

He takes his hat off my head and looks at me. (timestamp 4:35:03)

She points to her head. "With the hat?" (timestamp 4:51:09)

He's five or six, big ears, and a bucket hat like Gilligan. (timestamp 7:51:18)

Ethan is so excited about the dance that he's been in his top hat and tails since before I even got home from waiting tables. (timestamp 9:20:34)

...wearing a striped knit hat...(timestamp 10:59:55)

He pulls the hat from his head and the static electricity turns his hair into a halo. (timestamp 11:03:25)