The Fifteenth of June

Can we lose a loved one without losing ourselves?

Twenty-eight-year-old Drew Thomson is haunted by a troubled past. After struggling for years with alcoholism and antisocial behavior, he ends a stable relationship with his girlfriend and finds himself without a home, job, or purpose.

Just as he learns that his father is terminally ill, he meets a stranger who offers him a flicker of hope for a better future. But is he ready to bury the past?

Rich with dark humor and a keen insight into the human condition, this debut fictional release from author Brent Jones delves into life’s most pressing trials—destructive relationships, love, loss, and pursuing happiness.

*May Contain Spoilers*

The Fifteenth of June by Brent Jones explores the impact of childhood trauma onto adulthood and how much strength, courage, and help it takes to move on. As the main character, Drew, deals with the twentieth anniversary of his mother's murder as he also deals with a relationship ending and a terminal diagnosis for his father. 

Drew Thomson is not the easiest character to like. He's very troubled and deals with his depression and lack of emotions with drugs and alcohol. Drew has never been taught how to understand and truly face the struggles that come with life. So he hides from them, alone and inebriated to an extreme point. Right from the start, readers will undoubtedly feel pity for him. I could even see some readers not liking him at all as he doesn't exactly try. His father has always advised him to take life as it is, just accept it, and go with the flow. Yet, following this (bad) advice has only pushed Drew to further dislike himself and create a bad environment around himself. His best friend, Neil, is a horrible person, using drugs, alcohol, and women to create a facade of success and happiness. Though, I think this does well to symbolize the idea of rock bottom that Drew has sunken to. And truly, the only way for Drew to go is up. With the help of a complete stranger, Sierra, Drew decides to try. Try to live, try to improve, try to find his truth and live it. 

The position that Drew starts from is one of darkness and depression. At first, it seems like Drew has completely given up, ready to accept his drinking and drug-induced haze as a way of life. This does make it hard to connect with Drew at the beginning of the book, but it also offers a starting point from which to grow. As the book continues, Jones does a good job at bringing readers to a sense of understanding. There are always reasons behind a person's actions and Jones subtly highlights the motives that deeply effect Drew in order to bring readers into his corner. However, it does become a little frustrating as a reader and a witness to read all of Drew's destructive behavior. Even though, there is a echo of hope as Drew realizes that if he just tried, then maybe something good could come of it because he really has nothing left to lose. 

While Drew faces these internal struggles, his father, Russell, is dying from lung cancer. Russell seems to be the only constant in Drew's life and readers will witness the fear Drew feels as that consistency is threatened. The Fifteenth of June focuses on Drew's inability to live and feel as he thinks a normal person would and then compounds that stagnant and unfeeling nature with external circumstances that could push Drew over the edge. Throughout the novel, though, as Drew makes bad decision after bad decision, he comes to a metaphorical crossroads. He learns that though it won't be easy, by any means, he is capable of change. Because of that, this book can be taken as an inspirational story about a man who overcomes his darkness and looks to the future with a new sense of hope and humanity. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

The Girl on the Train

A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people’s lives.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut.

*May Contain Spoilers*

 

People watching often evolves into story. Made up names, careers, desires, beliefs, personalities. Then given enough time, enough dedication, they become something more. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, connects strangers, separated by tracks and timetables, through death and deceit.

 

Rachel is an alcoholic who struggles to want to change. She's been through the ringer: unfulfilled plans, cheating husband. The blame weighs heavily on her shoulders. And she takes it. Rachel takes the blackouts, the hangovers, the depression and somehow continues on. Readers will see her fail, again and again to take control of her ever-downward spiraling. As a character who is drunk more often than not, she not a very reliable narrator. She seems untrustworthy, angry, and some readers may give up on her, but... there's something about Rachel that doesn't sit right. Some inkling of misunderstanding between readers and her harrowing tales of drunken stupor. The reason behind her drinking is understandable. If I were in her situation, three glasses of wine and a few gin and tonics may seem likely to help the pain. Though alcohol is never the answer, at the bottom of the darkest pit, maybe a little forgetting is okay. I think most readers will see that Rachel's depression and lost dreams are holding her back. The character depicted is not the real Rachel. The real Rachel is the refracted beam of sunlight striking the glass windows of a train, there for a moment in perfect clarity.

 

Megan and Anna also share the status of narrator with Rachel. Megan is the missing woman. The woman who Rachel watched from the train with the seemingly perfect life. Anna is the mistress, the woman who replaced Rachel, the woman who gave her husband a child. Readers will worry about Megan in the beginning, care for her. But secrets have a way of getting out and her life is far from the perfection Rachel imagined. Though readers will still form a connection with Megan, Anna might not make the cut. Mistress, replacement, worried mother. Readers may see that Anna doesn't have it so easy, but home-wreckers aren't often given the benefit of the doubt. However, there is more to Anna than an ugly label.

 

These three women share the stage as all of their worlds collide. Rachel still loves her husband and he often talks her down off the ledge while trying to keep Anna happy. But Megan's disappearance upsets the norm after Rachel sees Megan kissing a man, most definitely not her husband, from her seat on the train. She is compelled to help move the suspect scope away from the loving husband. But she was there. Rachel was in town the night Megan went missing. She saw something but her mind refuses to release the blacked out information. Readers will feel just as compelled to know what happened. The Girl on the Train is a gripping disaster with too many questions and possibilities, not enough answers or truth. Once I started this enveloping novel, I couldn't quit until the memories were sorted. For those who like a good mystery, or a great mystery, read this book.

 

Rating: 4.5/5 Cups