Oliver Loving by
Stefan Merrill Block
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
I first saw this book on the Readers First website, wrote my first impression and then a couple of days later, I received an email saying that I had won Oliver Loving. And just like Oliver's last name, I was loving the book.
I was first drawn to the novel because of the colors of the cover, the soft blues which drew me in and the simpleness of the cover, I felt intrigued and wanted to know more. Reading the first impression I felt drawn in to the world of the Loving's, their story hitting hard, harder than I think it would've done before hand since I received the book and started reading it a couple of days after the Florida school shooting.
Stefan Merill Block has written a novel which is almost poetic in nature, he has a way with words in which I haven't seen in a long time and it was a very refreshing read.
Oliver Loving is not only a story of a young man's life being stolen away early, it's a story of family, of the fear of the unknowing and sorrow of not wanting to believe the worst. It's a story of how a place or a memory can connect people, no matter where they may be in the world, the story of how a place or a memory could also keep people apart for the better and for the worse of reasons. But most of all, Oliver Loving is a story of ups and downs, of happy moments and moments which would probably want to make you cry and scream down at the pages.
I found that I was easily drawn in to the pages, following the lives of Jed, Eve and younger son charlie through their own battles to survive and to try and carry on like normal. But it's a hard thing to do when your child, your brother is lain up in a bed in a care facility, a body without the ability to move or even to respond to anything. But what if Oliver isn't just a body? What if he is still inside his unmovable body, a mind without a voice?
What would you do?
What could you even want to say?
Would you tell the tale of your story?
Would you tell the truth to the horrors of that night?
For Oliver, that's the impossible, but we learn of his horror, of his teenage life and the moments leading up to the night that put a stop to everything he knew in the world. We learn of his worries and his wants, but sometimes, that doesn't matter. It's the story of Oliver's life, a shooting star passing through the sky, both seen and missed. He's the words the we hear, the words that we don't want to listen too and the words that go amiss.
As taking from the book:
I still can't explain it
but I know that
somewhere
we are still speaking
all the words
we never said. And that...that is enough.
View all my reviews
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