Book Review: Faithful by Alice Hoffman

Title: Faithful

Author: Alice Hoffman

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Date: November 1st, 2016

Pages: 272

Format: eARC

Source: from Publisher for a review

 

Synopsis (from Goodreads): From the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and The Dovekeepers comes a soul-searching story about a young woman struggling to redefine herself and the power of love, family, and fate.

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithfulis the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel.

Review:

Faithful is the book you can’t help but notice. It’s beautiful cover is what draw my attention immediately, but after I read it’s synopsis, I just had a feeling this book might be something I’d like.
I’m not even sure how to describe it, I just had a feeling this book will be right for me.
I am so thankful I was right.

This book was beautiful. There is no other way to describe it.

And hopeful, because when I finished it, it left me in hope that life can get better, people can make something out of their lives after the fall, even after dark places and hard times.

The story follows Shelby who was in a car accident that left her friend in vegetative state.
Shelby was the one who drove, and now she feels guilty for her friend’s stolen life.
She can’t help but feel responsible for what happened, knowing that she’s the one who had put her friend in the state that she is now, the state that turned her into a sleeping beauty in a way.

Faithful is written in first person. From Shelby’s POV we get to see a life of a young girl during time period of several years, where she do her best to overcome her guiltiness and grows as a person, making her life with no perspective turn into a life with potential to be a good one.

The writing style is simply beautiful. It takes more time to progress everything that’s written, but it is worth it.
This is the first book by Hoffman I have read, and it left me wanting to read more.

Shelby was an interesting protagonist. I understand why some readers might find her unlikeable, but I emphatized with her the whole time.
She had some moves that I wouldn’t approve, but still I understood her.
Side characters were well developed and they radiated with realness.

This book deals with depression in, to me, very realistic way.
It also talks about feeling of guilt that can overtake someone’s life.

I like how love for animals has been present the whole time but it did not overtake the main story.

Everything was just done very tasteful and I can honestly say that this is one of the best books I have read this year.