Member Review

The April Sawicki that we meet in the opening pages of Allison Larkin's "The People We Keep" isn't a particularly likable young woman.

Sometimes, that's what life does to you.

She's a teenager living in a broken down motorhome set apart from a similarly broken down, absent father who's affections seem constantly turned elsewhere. She has a boyfriend who's vision of their future is unappealing at best. She lives in a small town where there's no escaping this is her reality.

Until she decides she's had enough. She steals a car and heads out of town determined to live something, anything different.

Allison Larkin doesn't spend a whole lot of time trying to make April more appealing, though she spends enough time giving us glimpses of the goodness inside her that's looking for a safe place to come out. A songwriter who pours her life into her original tunes, April is broken and bruised but never completely shattered in this emotionally resonant, frequently raw story of a young woman's search for a place to belong and for people to call family.

Along the way, April scrapes together something resembling a life with all of its imperfections. She discovers intimacy and heartbreak, meaningful friendships and unhealthy cycles that get perpetuated time and time again.

She discovers the people that we let go of and, yes, the people that we keep.

Truthfully, April never becomes a completely likable character. She's far too raw and vulnerable and uncertain for that. Larkin doesn't paint easy answers and she doesn't ever promise April a Hallmark Channel type of ending. She makes choices that ticked me off and even at the end there's a richness of humanity amidst what is likely the closest April has ever come to that experience of happiness.

Truthfully, I think the whole reason April becomes kind of likable is that she somehow manages to draw into her world the likes of Margo and Carly and Ethan. These characters are so beautifully drawn that you can't help but fall in love with them even when their paths are uncertain. Larkin seems to understand that people can't be painted with broad strokes - they're not all bad or all good. They're simply people.

I struggled at times with "The People We Keep," tonal shifts occasionally felt a bit too abrupt and some of April's inner monologues went on a bit too long for my liking. But, the more I worked my way through "The People We Keep" the more I felt immersed in these stories and I could visualize these people and their worlds. There's an abruptness of sorts as "The People We Keep" starts to wind down, a sort of kaleidoscopic journey through April's heart and mind as she learns to process this life that she didn't even realize she'd created.

"The People We Keep" is often heartbreakingly honest and can be incredibly raw with the experiences of just trying to survive a world you don't completely understand. It can, at times, be simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating as we're so used to writers giving us the ending we want instead of something that feels imperfect yet honest and infused with light.