Thank you to Bart Yates, NetGalley, and the publisher for this advanced copy. I really enjoyed this book. It has such a great concept - 12 days of a man's (very long, very strange) life, 8 years apart.
As much as I enjoyed the historical fiction and learning more about some historical time periods (I loved the chapter about the Dust Bowl), what really resonated with me was the platonic love story of the three characters. People who understand you and are such a big part of your life that they are part of your soul and who you are as a person. That's the biggest reason to recommend this book.

See more on my bookstagram account - @bookish_starry_skies

I was very charmed by the title and book description, in how 12 different days are explored over the course Isaac Dahl’s life, but I’m afraid I was left quite disappointed. The book does span 100 years and covers significant historical periods (Forrest Gump style, with Isaac as a freelance journalist, but with far less humor and charisma), but the 12 different days are actually just 12 different chapters. Each chapter does center around a particular day but largely focuses on what has happened between those days as well so the “days” are not so distinct. The novel started off strong, but towards the end I found myself just skimming the pages because I wasn’t so invested in Isaac’s life events anymore.

There is very little “insight, wisdom, and emotional depth” in this book. Events simply occur and Isaac describes them which, to be fair, may be a reflection on how he is a journalist and his duty is to observe and report. Even so, it all felt very superficial.

The historical aspects of the plot are common knowledge for most Western educated readers, so I’m afraid I didn’t learn anything new about these historical events either. The book seems to just use some high school level world history knowledge without much extensive research in these historical periods.

The main side characters of this book, Isaac’s twin sister Agnes and their friend Bo, are entertaining at times but ultimately fall flat. The random side characters that pop up from chapter to chapter sometimes are mentioned again, sometimes not. Oftentimes they’re just spoken about in terms of “she would have been so-and-so’s age if he was still alive” or “I wonder how he’s doing, I should reach out some time.” Even his supposed “transformative” romance with Danny was so boring and brief that I had forgotten about that character until I re-read the book description before writing this review.

Bart Yates’ writing style is good and narratively, it was an easy and quick read. I didn’t have any difficulty following along and it was easy to keep track of the characters. I did almost stopped reading in the middle of it because I was bored and detached, but Isaac’s first-person narration was pleasant enough for me to skim to finish.

Much gratitude to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this novel for review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First things first is that I really enjoyed reading this book, the writing style was interesting and created a really heartfelt story. Each chapter of the book is a different day in Isaac Dahl's life so you jump from different times and places with each chapter but learn more about his life and all of his encounters,

Overall it was a really enjoyable read and was a refreshing genre to what I have recently been reading. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a heartfelt story about family, friendships and love.

So I just finished reading The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl about ten minutes ago. I started it last night while I was in a movie theater waiting for the movie to start and I finished it today in a marathon three hour reading session. So, odds are, I really loved it. And I did.

The book follows the titular character from age 8 to age 96. Each chapter is a vignette from every decade of Isaac's life. Over the course of those chapters, Bart Yates reveals Issac and his family and his friends and the way the world changes. It's a masterful work, and I found myself intensely involved in the narrative threads.

While I was reading it, I kept thinking of other books that made me feel the same way. The Last Chairlift by John Irving, Friend Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, and Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez were the three that most resonated.

Isaac, Aggie, Bo, Elias, Ty, Karen, Jamie, Danny, Janet, and all the other characters in the book will continue to live with me. I see myself re-reading this book in the future.

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl was a super heartfelt, interesting, quick read! Each chapter of this book is a different day in Isaac’s life. 12 different days over about 100 years of time. This book was unlike any book I have read before, and I really enjoyed it! The writing it truly incredible and the author does a great job between the time gaps in the different chapters. I would definitely recommend! Thank you NetGalley, Bart Yates, and A John Scognamigilo Book for the sneak peak of this book!

Isaac's journey to finding love is realistic and relatable, considering the challenges faced by gay men of his generation. While he doesn't find traditional romantic love, he does experience intimate connections and a long-term partnership, albeit one that is long-distance and separate from his daily life. This reflects his independent nature, which is common among queer individuals who were denied acceptance for most of their lives. Despite this, Isaac's story is not one of sadness and longing, but rather a testament to the power of human connections, particularly in platonic relationships. This novel, reminiscent of John Irving's quirky family sagas, is a great choice for readers seeking gay representation in 20th-century historical fiction.

The life course of a gay man born at the end of World War I is the subject of Yates’s latest novel, and it’s an interesting study of how a queer fellow of the Greatest Generation might have navigated the many turbulent events of twentieth century America, as well as family, friendships, and love.

Yates tells his subject Isaac Dahl’s biography in a first person narrative of twelve shortish chapters. Each chapter is a day (or so) in Isaac’s life, and an eight year increment forward in his tale. Beginning in 1926, when Isaac is eight years old, we meet his family, who are immigrants from Sweden, living in a hardscrabble mining town in Colorado. Most significantly, we’re introduced to Isaac’s twin sister Aggie and his best friend Bo. Whereas Isaac is mild-mannered and sensitive, Aggie is loud and undisguised in her opinions. The two bicker constantly, as siblings often do, but the tight bond between them is readily apparent. Affable, easygoing Bo becomes the perfect complement to their opposing personalities, not just as a peacemaker, but as someone who appreciates each of them for who they are. The three form an unbreakable triangle that gets them through a series of tragedies. Even as their journeys diverge at times, they always come back to each other.

The ‘strangeness’ of Isaac’s life, alluded to in the title, has to do with him encountering more than his fair share of freak natural disasters. At eight years old, he and Aggie survive an avalanche that has them tumbling together down a mountain in a steel bathtub that ultimately serves as a shelter from the tsunami of snow and debris, while their parents are lost along with most of their Colorado town. They’re taken in by an uncle in Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl, where they, and Bo, who was also orphaned by the avalanche, endure the nation’s worst heat wave and drought in history, which produces an epically devastating dust storm. Later, Isaac, a young war correspondent, gets assigned to the USS Houston in the Pacific theater of World War II. The battleship takes heavy bombing from the Japanese, and Isaac’s life is narrowly spared when he disembarks before the ship’s final, fateful foray in the Timor Sea.

Thus, one of the main themes of the novel is surviving against the odds, and that motif takes on new dimensions when Isaac joins his teenage nephew Elias (Aggie and Bo’s son) to volunteer as a peace activist during the racist backlash to desegregation in the 1960s South, and later, as he lives through the decades of the AIDS crisis.

Yates’s chronicle of all these harrowing events begs the question: what determines who survives and who does not? Yet, it would be foolish to offer some simplistic answer, and the author skirts around that pitfall. He does seem to have something to say about how one rebounds from the cruelties of the world, whether random or guided by the baser instincts of human nature, and that harkens back to the sturdy triumvirate of Isaac, Aggie and Bo. They stick together through each other’s personal hardships and life’s inevitable losses of loved ones, and develop a certain hardiness to whatever gets thrown their way, including the physical discontents of aging. In some ways it’s a three-way marriage, with Isaac taking on equal responsibility in raising his nieces and nephews, and later great-nieces and nephews, and showing them the world as they come of age.

One wishes that Isaac could have found love all on his own, but Yates’s handling of that matter scans genuine based on the position for gay men of Isaac’s generation. He finds occasional intimacies and a longer term partnership that is long distance and never really integrates the two men’s lives. That’s his personal choice, however, which reflects a solidly independent mindset, which one might expect of queer people who were not afforded acceptance of their relationships for the majority of their lives. Isaac’s story isn’t one of loneliness and regret for what could have been, however. The power of human relationships comes through for him in platonic ways, which are no less meaningful and comforting.

Reminiscent of John Irving’s quirky family sagas, Yates’s novel is a great title for readers interested in gay representation in twentieth century historical fiction.

This title was reviewed for Out in Print.

This was… interesting. Or not…
The writing was very good. But it was very difficult for me to follow the story, but I always had a small hope that I would like it.

This book does justice to its name. It feels really LONG. In my opinion, it can be a bit boring at times. But it was not bad. The story is beautiful, really.

2.5 stars.

Soooo this book..... I was always a big fan of stories that spanned the life of the protagonist, interspersed with historical events. This book hit all the right spots in terms of this. The writing was amazing, and the characters created were vibrant and full of life.
12 days in the life of Isaac Dahl, 12 vignettes and windows to his thoughts and soul. Some of the days did not have a historical event to signify them they were just important moments for Isaac, and , in my opinion, this is what made the book even more personal and deep.
It had been a long time since I cried with a book. The pain and emotions all of the protagonists felt, was so real and it truly gripped me.
This was a beautifully written book. The themes it touched upon were heavy, however the humor and levity were present throughout, making all the bad situations somewhat easier for the reader to handle. The strong bond Isaac has with his childhood friend Bo and his sister Agnes, is the central part of the book and the love between all three functions as the core of the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book tells the story of Issac Dahl over the course of his life, where each chapter is one day of his life every eight years. Some years are years filled with disasters, tragedy, and major historical events. Other years are just small moments in his life. However, it is all centered around his family, mainly his twin Aggie and his best friend Bo.

I enjoyed this short read, but while I thought I would like the concept of the 8 year jumps, it just makes it hard to follow along. I think the point is that there are so many little stories of this man’s life that it doesn’t have to have a smooth flow, but it was hard to go from one chapter to the next. Overall I give this book a solid 3 stars.

“We might not have a home anymore, and God only knew how much time we had left together on the planet, but at least we could fire off childish insults at each other and share another laugh or two before our game was finally over.“- @bartyates1

Meet Issac Dahl… he’s 8, lives with his parents, twin sister Aggie and baby sister in a valley in Utah with his family and community of Swedish immigrants. His best friend’s name is Bo. That’s the first couple pages… hold on tight. In the next 12 chapters you’ll see the life of Isaac, Aggie, and Bo unfold. From the age of 8 to the age of 96 Issac lived one very full life of adventure- natural disasters, WWII bombings, the atom bomb test runs, civil rights protests, the rising of the Mary Rose, growing up, growing old, raising himself, raising his nieces and nephews, falling in love, staying in love, and all the while fighting to live each and every day because the excitement of what could happen the next day kept him coming back for more.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This is one of the best time-jump books I have ever read. Even though decade jumps happened with every chapter, Yates always addressed the question you had lingering just enough. He expertly wrote of these monumental US and world events through the eyes of this family balancing the characters emotion and experience and the impact of the event. As sad as I was to read that last page and say goodbye to these characters, I was overwhelmed with the gift of their lifetime of love and the imperfect perfection of their family dynamic. If you’re lucky enough to know love and friendship that runs this deep and this true- it was a life well lived.

This book is a gift- thank you @netgalley and @kensingtonbooks for this #advancedreaderscopy of #theverylongverystrangelifeofisaacdahl

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this book before publication.

I really enjoyed the characters and relationships throughout the story, I thought they were very realistic and relatable. My intrigue was pretty solid the entire time, although the pacing of some chapters pulled me out at times. Sometimes I didn’t quite understand what was going on (example: what was happening to Isaac in the ‘50’s), this was later explained but I felt it should’ve been told sooner.

Overall I enjoyed the book and I know a few people I would recommend it to.

I absolutely loved this book. I feel like I know the characters and just love how it tracked his life for a day every 8 years. I remember the Mary Rose being raised and went to see it a few times and I feel I’ve learned more about historical events in the story. I couldn’t put it down and loved the relationship between Isaac and his sister Aggie.
I’ll look out for this author again and hope there are most books to come!

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl reads a bit like a collection of short stories, detailing 12 days in Isaac’s life which spans nearly a century. He survived natural disasters and deals with personal and society prejudice being a gay man in a time this was deemed unacceptable and considered a criminal offence.

Some days are perhaps more interesting than others however, it’s still a good read. It’s perfect for lovers of historical fiction and character-driven reads.

this book was absolutely divine!!!! beautiful story of friendship and love. perfect book for a nice light heartened story.

Probably more of a 3.5 stars, but Isaac Dahl was a nice imaginary friend to hang out with, so let's go with 4.

What really caught my eye when I requested this book (oh yeah, thanks NetGalley for the ARC!) was the structure. I tend to love stories that tell the full life story of a fellow human being, but most of these books follow the natural rhythm of life. Stuff happens, stuff gets written down. Stuff does not happen, we're skipping ahead.

But instead of that, this book tells the story of just 12, well, stories, giving it more of a short story collection vibe than a novel. Some of them were super interesting (especially the first couple with the avalanche and the dust storms and the war), while others were... a little meh. And I guess that's truthful to how life actually is. You have exciting decades and then you have meh decades, and by following this format, you felt like you were actually reading about a real person. So kudos for that.

What I didn't particularly like was the characterization of Isaac, or well, the lack of it actually. Isaac lived to be 96 years old and we learnt so much about his life... but not about him? All I could tell you about Isaac is that he was nice, and smart, and loved his family. And absolutely nothing else.

All in all, the writing was nice (tho a little boring at times), the structure was intriguing and it delivered what it promised, and I learnt a lot about the 20th century (I had no clue about the Dust Bowl or the Bikini people before this book), but the overall book just felt a little flat.

Thank you to Bart Yates, the publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

Where to begin... I think I enjoyed this book, though I don't think that this novel is quite as complex as I had expected from the description. The novel reads a bit like 12 connected vignettes about our protagonist's life as he is approaching his end. The book is no-doubt well-written, but I just wanted a bit more from this one.

It may not have been exactly what I anticipated, but I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up if the premise excites you. A solid 3.5 for me.

This book reads like the best historical fiction. It recounts 12 particular days in the life of one man, Isaac Dahl. Nearing death, he decides to write his memoir. Lucky for the reader, his life is an interesting one, which includes natural disasters and catastrophes, war, and coming out as a gay man. Recommended for readers who a good storyteller, fans of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, or The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
#TheVeryLongVeryStrangeLifeofIsaacDahl #NetGalley

After reading the description, The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl became one of my highly anticipated reads. I loved the eccentric idea of 12 chapters, highlighting 12 different days (in 8 year increments) throughout the protagonist’s 96 years of life. I felt as though this unique approach may offer an opportunity to enhance the complexity of the characters and their stories. I expected this story to be compelling and consuming - leaving me emotional and hungover. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

The 12 chapter, 12 day approach did not cultivate the complexity I had envisioned. Instead, I found the chapters to read as separate short stories which often glossed over opportunities to provoke emotion or truly engage with the book’s vulnerable themes. I think one of the most notable missed opportunities was with the character Elias. Throughout the book, I often found it difficult to empathize with the events due to the superficial nature of the story. Additionally, I found myself struggling to adapt to Yates style of writing and found the lengthy, borderline run on sentences to be disengaging.

With that said, I still feel as though this is a good book for someone looking to read a quick, light, feel good story focused on themes of family, friendship, and platonic love. Specifically, I appreciated the full circle moment in Aggie’s letter to Isaac in the final chapters. Personally, I just wanted this book to be more memorable as I feel there was potential within the story to have a profound impact.

I would rate this book 2.5/5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley and Kensington Books, for the ARC.

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl is a unique story. It’s short and describes in 12 chapters 12 days (or periods) in Isaac’s 96-year-long life. Each chapter is eight years apart from the former one.
 
The heart of this story is the (platonic) love triangle between Isaac, his twin sister Aggie, and his best friend Bo, but there are a lot of side characters, too (Elias and Danny being my favorites). I loved being in Isaac’s head while he aged, as a young boy, surviving an avalanche, as a young journalist in WWII, as a fourty-eight-year-old participating in the Civil Rights Movement, as an older gay man in the eighties when AIDS suddenly reared its head, and as a senior when his body became less cooperative but his mind still remained sharp.
 
Sometimes, I wanted to know more about what had happened, but on the other hand, those little snippets taken out of a long and satisfying life are what make this book so captivating. It’s a story to curl up on the couch and just read, sipping from your drink and smiling, and occasionally shedding a tear.
 
Thank you, Kensington Books and NetGalley, for allowing me to read this precious story early. I’ll definitely check out Bart Yates’ other work.