My first Kevin Wilson book was Nothing to See Here which I thought was terrific. This is another family story with unusual circumstances and just as wonderful.

Mad and her mother run the family farm in Tennessee. Mad's father left a note and fled town some 20 years ago with no further contact. But the women do a fine job of surviving and thriving without him although Mad has a lot of questions. Then one day Rube shows up on their doorstep. It turns out that Mad's father is also his dad -- same scenario. He hung around for 10 years or so (before Mad) and was a good father but then one day just left and never was heard from except for a goodbye note. Rube has hired a detective and discovered there are two more abandoned families and also that their father might be in California.

So, Rube proposes the ultimate road trip. His plan is to stop along the way and collect the four siblings, each ten years apart, and go to find their father and confront him. As awkward as it is, he does persuade everyone to accompany him and they make it to the coast.

The four bond, and help fill in the gaps left by their father's departure. There are adventures along the way. They each have a residual sadness in their life from his disappearance but this is not a melancholy book. Somehow the four have managed to emerge as thoughtful, competent mostly functional people despite their childhood lacking a dad.

An excellent read, with endearing characters and some unexpected events. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book was fantastic!

Kevin Wilson’s characters really jump off the page and the familial relationships are so rich and complex. The story was plotted brilliantly and the language is beautiful. Even though the chapters were long, the story flowed nicely.

I can’t adequately describe how brilliant Wilson is with language in this story; it is somehow funny, poignant, painful, and achingly beautiful at once.

I would recommend this to readers who enjoy readable literary fiction, touching family sagas, road trip quests, and relationship stories. Readers of these other authors might also enjoy this: Katherine Center, Kiley Reid, and Shelby Van Pelt.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley. I have really enjoyed Kevin Wilson’s work in the past, so I was excited to read this one. It was a little less quirky and weird, while still being offbeat. I liked that the premise was different, but there was something missing to really make it stand out for me. I was missing the deeper point or meaning or takeaway - for a book that seeks to be about family and abandonment, it was lacking the depth I needed.

Run for the Hills is pure delight! Kevin Wilson to put the fun in dysfunctional family here. Like his prior works, Run for the Hills features an eclectic cast of lovable and endearing characters written in his signature whip-smart wit. I love how Wilson captures small-town USA in his works and in Run for the Hills, he perfectly captures this in the sibling's road trip.

Run for the Hills is a humourous and at times emotional story that overall was an instant mood boost. The book also solidified why Kevin remains one of my favorite authors. This is my fifth book by him and proof that he truly does not write a bad book!

Kevin Wilson writes quirky stories with quirky, lovable characters. This book is about four half-siblings finding each other on their mad quest to confront the father that left each of them behind. The scenario is outlandish, but it worked, and by the end of it, I am so glad the siblings found each other, and can envision a future for them, as a family.

I found this book similarly enjoyable to Nothing to See Here. Half-siblings, who were unaware of each other's existence, meet on a road trip to find their father. He finds a new family every 10 years. Wilson creates vivid characters, although the nicknames - Rube, Pep, Mad - seemed a little on the nose. He writes pleasant, humorous novels. I should read the short stories too.

I forgot how much I love this author’s writing. Well, I didn’t forget, I just needed to read his latest and was instantly reminded how quirky his characters are and how wildly imaginative and off-beat the plot while at the same time a tender story unfolds.

Unbeknownst to Madeline who thought she was a single child, turns out her father, who is not the man she knew, has left behind others, whom she will come to know when she embarks on a road trip with Reuben, who claims to be her half-brother.

In these pages, it’s not just an adventure or discovery of family, it’s an exploration of the power of intense emotions, acknowledging the pain and accompanying feelings, and how it shaped who they became. What Wilson does so well is take ordinary words and turn them into something extraordinary, leaving this reader tickled. Somehow a character can go from staring at a stranger to an “afternoon weirdo.” Equally touching is discovering newfound love so profound it can cause an aching vulnerability, which leads to a better understanding of how people cope or perhaps don’t. This and more are what Madeline and Reuben contemplate as they embark on a discovery to find their father and other siblings, while the magical sense of pride they feel meeting another person related by blood, leaves them in utter awe and equally dumbfounded by their father’s absence.

Heart-filling and equally heart-piercing. My kind of story.

I'm a big Kevin Wilson fan, and this one didn't disappoint (though it wasn't *quite* as good as others). I absolutely loved the premise, and the characters were all written in a way that was relatable but endowed with endearing quirks. The pacing of the novel was excellent (sometimes challenging in road trip novels, I think) and I appreciated the uniqueness of the stops along the way. The found family trope was well-executed and I think all the characters showed interesting development that made sense given what was happening to them. All in all, an enjoyable read with just the right about of heart-tugging without veering into the overly-sweet.

Written with heaping doses of heart and humor, RUN FOR THE HILLS is a story about forging relationships where you least expect and redefining what it means to have found family.

This book was so delightful! When I did my ancestry DNA testing, I discovered two brothers I didn't know about, so this hit close to home for me. We haven't gone on a road trip but I totally would!

Wilson does a great job of tucking humurous moments in amoung heavy subject matter. This story was an emotional roller coaster and I had trouble putting it down because I was so invested in what happened next.

All of the characters are intersting and individual. I was rooting for all of them.

Highly recommend.

This is a Sibling Story like only Kevin Wilson can write. Madeline Hill has lived with her mom on their farm in Tennessee together since her dad left twenty years ago. When Reuben Hill shows up and informs her that he is her half-brother, she is surprised.

She is even more shocked when Reuben tells her that there are more half-siblings and he intends to find them all. The two set off together to find the rest of their family. How many more Hill siblings will there be and will they find their father in the end?

Why Jackie loves it

Wilson always has quirky novels that make me laugh. They also have an undercurrent of hurt. I laughed my way through this book but also felt Reuben's pain. As the oldest of the Hill children, he feels the acute loss of his father more than any of the other Hill children. I loved the book until the end. I wish there was a little more because I felt that the story was not complete, even if the road trip was.

Mad’s got a solid life on the farm with her mom—it’s not exactly what she pictured for herself, but it’s where life took her after her dad walked out years ago. Then one day, a guy shows up claiming to be her brother (surprise!) and invites her on a quest to find their elusive, serial-family-starting father—who apparently has a pattern of sticking around for about 10 years and then vanishing.

Mad thinks the whole thing sounds kind of nuts, and she’s not even sure she wants to see her dad again. But the idea of not being an only child—and finally getting some answers—is too tempting to pass up. So she teams up with Rube for a journey that’s full of heart, humor, and some seriously sweet moments of redemption.

I really enjoyed this story. The age gap between the siblings and their awkward, quirky attempts to figure out how to be family is both hilarious and touching.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for the chance to read this incredible ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Kevin Wilson has a unique ability to quietly build characters in unusual plots that may not be completely believable but the reader is along for the ride. And what a literal and figurative ride this is. A collection of half siblings get to know each other on a cross country road trip. As someone who recently discovered two adult half brothers, I couldn’t help but picture myself in a similar situation. This book is great for anyone who loves character driven narratives, quirky characters, and finding gems of sentences that only Kevin Wilson can write.

Thank you to Ecco for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Dysfunctional family sagas, road trips, and adventures are my favorite stories. I love quirky characters and random ideas – which is one of the reasons I turn to Kevin Wilson’s books. He always writes such interesting and unique stories, and you never know what you’re about to get into.

Mad’s dad left when she was a child, leaving her and her mother to run their farm in Tennessee. Now at 34, the farm and her mother is all she has, that is until Ruben shows up claiming to be her brother and claiming that they have more siblings scattered across the US. On top of that bombshell, Ruben also wants Mad to head out on a road trip with him to not just find his father, but to find and meet the rest of their half siblings as well. As they head out on the road, Mad and the rest of her siblings will need to face their own loneliness and past to heal their futures.

This is a perfect example of a Kevin Wilson story. He’s taken a found family trope and infused it with plenty of wit, defined characters, and character growth. I love all our siblings, and it is actually my second ‘sibling love’ story I’ve read in a row. Because of this I just didn’t love this one as much as I wanted to. I enjoyed the story, the plot, our characters, and the writing, I just didn’t get the same ‘spark’ and emotional reaction as I did the book I read right before this one. Because of that alone, it’s not a five-star read for me.

Still highly recommend Wilson’s books, but my favorite is still Nothing to See Here.



Run for the Hills comes out April 8, 2025. Huge thank you to Ballantine Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my:

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In Kevin Wilson's newest novel, he deals with the idea of family and identity. Mad, short for Madeline, Hill is an organic farmer in TN, working with her mother to make sure the farm is a success every day after her father, Chuck (Charles) Hill left them when she was about 10 years old. One day, Rube, short for Reuben Hill, arrives at the farm to tell Mad they share a father, who also left him and his mother when Rube was about 10 years old. Their father may be the same genetically, but he was completely different for them both, apparently reshaping himself into a new person as he moved from Boston to TN. Rube wants Mad to come with him on a cross-country road trip to find their father, as well as 2 additional siblings that Charles left behind. Rube's mother has recently died, and he has no one left in the world besides these half siblings and their father.
I very much enjoyed a previous work by Kewin Wilson, Nothing to See Here, and had high hopes for this book as well. They are similar in that they explore the idea of found family and how our identity is shaped by our family as we grow older. That said, this book was extremely short and didn't feel fully fleshed out and developed. The ending felt abrupt and lacking as a result. For me, this was also lacking some of the humor I have come to expect from his books. It was nearly there, but something was off. For those reasons, I have decided to rate this book 3 stars. It was fun and I think the ideas explored were meaningful, but the execution was lacking.
Thank you to Ecco book and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

I love Kevin Wilson’s work. No matter what. His writing is so sharp and funny and poignant underneath all the wit. So I had extremely high hopes when I saw this book was coming out - there was so much potential for the whimsical characters and situations I have come to adore from him.

Unfortunately this fell a little flat. There were glimmers of his humor and sarcasm but not nearly enough as what I have come to expect. The plot was set up so nicely to be entertaining but I found the pace to be very slow. So much was spent on the journey to find their father but at the same time I felt like nothing really happened. And at the end, everything wrapped up so quickly with little resolution.

I will continue to read everything Kevin Wilson puts out but this one wasn’t my favorite. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Run for the Hills features the same type of unexpected, quirky tales that Kevin Wilson has gifted this world and is shared with the reader via the clear language and a straight-forward writing style that we have experienced with his previous books.

In this book, a group of half-siblings find one another and go on an adventure to meet up with their mutual parent. The story is at the same time joyous, silly, and poignant. It is a quick and easy read, that I would anticipate most people enjoying.

My one critique is that it was almost straight-forward to the point of dryness. I wanted more from this narrative: more emotion, more detail, more activity. Just more.

Run for the Hills is an easy and fun read that will tug at your heart strings. While I think it could have been a bit stronger, it is certainly an enjoyable ride. ;)

I really wanted to love this book because I loved Nothing to See Here and Now Is Not the Time to Panic, but while heartwarming, it wasn't the home run I was hoping for.

I'll start with the good:
- I was drawn in by the quirky characters and the relationships we got to see grow and evolve between them. Rube, Mad, Pep, and Tom were so charming and endearing! The banter was so fun and made me chuckle at times
- The premise of a dysfunctional family reunion / road trip to find their absent father and get answers was original and entertaining
- It has some important things to say about personal identity and mental health

The mid:
- The pacing. I felt like it started with a bang, but somehow I wasn't as invested by the time we had met Tom

And unfortunately, the bad:
- The ending really petered out for me. It felt predictable and wasn't nearly as emotional as I expected. I also felt like there were some out-of-character moments in the name of tying everything up nicely for a nice kumbaya family moment
- I think I would've enjoyed a more in-depth study on mental health and how that contributed to some of the characters' lives and choices. It was mentioned as a definite factor, but I felt it would've been more impactful and felt more satisfying for the characters to do more reflecting on exactly what was at play

I'd give the first half 4.5 stars and the second 2 stars, so averaging out to an overall 3 stars!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

If Kevin Wilson has written it, you can bet the book will have a weird premise. In Run for the Hills, Mad Hill is living her life, running her organic farm with her mom. And out of the blue, Rube Hill shows up claiming to be her half brother. Yes, her father left when she was young. And according to Rube, it wasn’t the first time he’d run out on a family. Or the last. If there’s such a thing as a serial monogamist, Charles Hill was a serial parent. Once gone, he never made a re-appearance in his child’s life. Rube and his mom were the first family. Mad and her mom, the second. Then there was Pep, now in college. And then Tom, only 11. And Rube wants her to join him, meeting the other siblings and going to find their dad, supposedly now in California.
For such a wild premise, the characters all felt real and relatable. Their father leaving has left each with trouble handling relationships. Yet each has also had their own successes. These were characters I enjoyed spending time with. The story itself is heartwarming in its own quirky Kevin Wilson way. It tackles some big issues - abandonment, parenting, what makes a family, mental illness. But it delves into them without turning dark or morose. In the end, I loved how the siblings were there for each other, even though they had just met.
My thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for an advance copy of this book.

This is just what I’ve come to expect from Kevin Wilson. A quirky cast of characters that come together in a heartwarming yet moving story of found family.

It wasn’t long into the road trip that my heart expanded and I grew to love Rube, Mad, Pep and Tom.

A quick road trip that really is about the bumpy ride of life and the connections out there waiting for us.