Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Carry The One

Title:  Carry The One
Author:  Carol Anshaw
Publication Information:  Simon and Schuster. 2012. 253 pages.

Book Source:  I read this book based on reading about it on GoodReads.

Favorite Quote:  "Guilt, she discovered early on, was the easiest, the simplest response. Much more complicated was living past guilt, eating the permanence, accommodating the weight of having done something terrible and completely undoable."

Carry The One follows a set of siblings and friends over a course of twenty five years. The book begins with a wedding, and in the aftermath of the wedding, friends traveling together hit and accidentally kill a young girl. The book is meant to look at how one tragic moment impacts these individuals throughout their lives.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy the book at all. The book starts off with a wedding. The characters introduced sadly are not very likable ones. The description of the wedding includes descriptions of casual drug use, casual relationships, and the fact that even the wedding itself is precipitated by an unplanned pregnancy. Following this is the fact that these individuals in an alcohol and drug haze get in a car and drive. All that in the first few pages of the books. Not a positive start.

Given these circumstances, it is unclear that what transpires in the characters' lives is due to one tragic moment or a series of unfortunate choices. The premise of the book does not follow through because even in the first few pages, the accident is not a surprise and is a result of decisions made. To then turn around and present that accident as the cause in all that follows lacks conviction and makes for poor reading.

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