Tag: close-your-eyes-hold-hands • BookLikes

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review 2016-06-24 21:39

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands - Chris Bohjalian

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the first book I have read by Chris Bohjalian. It was not what I expected at all. This is a dark story with some pretty intense themes, but written very well. I really enjoyed the world building and the Emily Dickinson poetry that was painted into the writing. It has been a while since I read a dystopian/post-apocalyptic book and I was extremely satisfied with this one.

This book is a narration by the lead character Emily Shepard. Her entire world has fallen apart and she must survive in a world completely different than the one she had known her whole life. Emily changes her name through the book to keep herself out of danger from the fallout created by her parents. Emily is attempting to survive in the best way that she knows how and in turn realizes that the way that she knows how to live might be the reason why she struggles so much. She is a tough character with a loving heart, but makes some pretty poor choices. Her voice is authentic and at times heartbreakingly raw as she tells of her life. I found myself quite frequently wanting to scream at Emily while she recounted her story. As I said, she made bad choices and even though she realized after the fact that it wasn’t a good choice, she never once took the time to think about the repercussions of her actions. It wasn’t until Cameron came along that she seemed to want to change her course of direction.

The book is told in two separate parts. Before Cameron and After Cameron. Cameron is a little boy who she befriended and became responsible for. Their story is nothing but sad and made my heart hurt. The other side characters were interesting, yet despicable.

While I enjoyed this book, there were some hard themes to deal with while reading. Drug use was a constant through this book, which wasn’t as bad to read about as the cutting. She didn’t want to start cutting, but did anyways and up until the very end of the book, kept doing it. She let her “friends” talk her into a lot of bad stuff, cutting being one of them. She let them drag her into prostitution, stealing, and drug abuse. Emily found herself multiple times homeless, which was hard to read about, especially when she was living in an igloo made out of trash bags and frozen leaves with 9-year-old Cameron.

Overall, I enjoyed this book because it was a completely interesting concept. It kept me on my toes waiting to find out what new mess Emily could get herself into. I liked how it was told by Emily in a way that made me feel like we were sitting across the table from each other sharing our life stories. I liked how the author tied in the title to the story and how everything seemed to round out by the end of the book. I liked that most of the issues Emily faced were resolved by the end of the novel. I especially liked how I loved and hated Emily and the mess that her world became. I just really liked this book.

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review 2015-02-03 20:07

This audio was read very well by the author's daughter, Grace.

Thewanderingjew

Emily Shepard is a troubled young girl who is forced to face enormous, catastrophic changes in her life. She lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. She is a bright teenager in her junior year at a good private school. She does not perform to her potential although she is quite capable; she is not interested in anything other than English and her favorite author, Emily Dickinson, her namesake, someone whose poetry she reveres. She often uses the lines from particular poems to guide her in her behavior and decisions.
When there is a horrific event at the Cape Abenaki Nuclear Power plant, resulting in a meltdown, Emily’s father is blamed since he was in charge. It was suspected that drunkenness was at the heart of the disaster requiring the evacuation of the area and the creation of containment zones. An enormous clean-up effort had to be launched in the vicinity of the plant and a large area surrounding it. Although her parents were both at the plant and have probably died, no sympathy is shown toward Emily, rather, fingers are pointed at her and there is a call to bring her in to testify as to the competence of her father. They need to blame someone for the death and destruction that was caused by the meltdown and the Shepards, known for their drinking, are it.
Emily is confused and probably in shock from the magnitude of her loss. She fears for the safety of her dog Maggie who was left behind. She is simply at loose ends with no idea of how to respond to what has happened. She is not able to return to her home, so desperate, she runs away to escape the harassment and barrage of accusations. She changes her name to Abby Bliss, once a close friend of Emily Dickinson and attempts to survive by her wits. This 16 year old becomes involved with many sordid characters in order to support herself. When she befriends nine-year old Cameron, also a runaway, but from an abusive foster home, he becomes her purpose in life; He becomes her family, and her efforts to protect him are fierce.
Although most of the rest of the world outside of the contaminated zone is not as much involved in the catastrophe at Cape Abenaki, Emily’s life is consumed by it. This is her story, and she tells it with both pathos and humor, but it is not always logical. It bounces back and forth, in time and place, as she reveals what she has done since the meltdown and divulges her plans to return home. Perhaps this bouncing was part of the author’s design; since she is so troubled maybe he meant to present her narrative that way.
Emily’s character possesses both the tenderness and the hardness necessary to do whatever she must to survive, but though she is supposedly a bright young girl, she reacts often with questionable judgment, more with her youth than her intellect. There are aspects of the story that stretch belief beyond its normal boundaries, and even the suspension of disbelief fails to justify the premise presented. Her lifestyle was sometimes amoral. She turned tricks, stole what she needed and was a cutter who harmed herself to feel good, a contradiction in terms, but a very real problem.
In the end, the book did not fulfill my expectations. It left unanswered questions, unresolved major controversial issues and really made no sweeping social statements, although the main idea of the book definitely presented the opportunity to do so.

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review 2015-02-01 23:27

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Denise

I don't know why I began my story with the igloo. The igloo was really the beginning of the end-or, maybe, the end of the beginning.

I am used to reading, and really enjoying, historical fiction from Chris Bohjalian. This book is vastly different from what I've read from him but it was just as enjoyable. This book follows Emily Shepard and what her life becomes after a nuclear reactor explodes at the nuclear plant where her father is chief engineer. After her father is blamed for the explosion she runs away and takes on a new identity.

This book might be a little frustrating for some people because this is written as though Emily is writing in a journal letting people know about her experiences and she tends to jump around a lot. Normally this would drive me insane but since Emily was a character that I was easily able to identify with the jumping around didn't bother me one bit.

I genuinely enjoyed reading about Emily. She goes through some pretty horrible things and does some bad things and I couldn't help but want her to get through her difficult times and get the help she didn't know she needed. I loved how authentic her tone was throughout the book. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Cameron and I loved how protective Emily was towards him. I enjoyed Emily's discussions throughout the book about Emily Dickinson as I too enjoy her poems (I used to write poems like Emily Shepard and boy did I think I was such a pretty).

I don't want to say much about the ending, just that I felt it was a great ending and definitely fit with what had previously happened. It was great getting to read something different and fresh from Chris Bohjalian and I look forward to reading whatever he has in store next.

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text 2015-01-31 17:20

Next up is...

Denise

This book seems very different from Chris Bohjalian's previous books (or at least different from his books that I've read). I guess you could call this dystopian but I think this will be quite different from the run of the mill dystopian books you see a lot of nowadays.

Chris Bohjalian magical tbr jar close your eyes hold hands

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review 2014-12-06 00:00

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Listening to the Silence

3.5 Stars, rounded to 3

A resident of the Northwest Kingdom located in Vermont, Emily Shepherd, like everyone else there is forced to flee when a nuclear reactor melts down. The only difference is that her father is the one believed to be at fault, possibly drunk, and he and Emily's mother who also worked at the facility, are both killed along with 17 others. Scared, believing the whole world hates her, Emily runs away and through a series of poor decisions finds herself living on the streets of Burlington, a runaway foster child Cameron in her care.

Written in the form of a diary or memoir, this narrative is Emily's stream of conscious accounting of her life on the street and what happened after. It is written in a non-linear format jumping back and forth between the present day, her life with her parents, life before Cameron, life with Cameron, and life after Cameron. It was incredibly well-written and emotionally engaging, just as I have come to expect from Bohjalian. I am always astounded at how well he writes women and this time he managed to pull off a very believable teenage girl, for which he credits his daughter for her assistance. I didn't love this story as much as some of his other books, but this was still quite good and I will freely recommend it.