Night Road


Read Together January 2025

Night Road, by Kristin Hannah


 This book came recommended by my sister, who thought it would be one we would all enjoy discussing. I was the odd man out in our club, being the only one who hadn't read a Kristin Hannah book. This is one of her earlier pieces, released in 2011.

Sidenote: We had just finished Anxious People and were so eager to start our next book, Karyn surprised Heather by ordering a copy from Amazon (next day delivery) when Heather was put on a wait list at her library.  Karyn finished the book in a couple days, finishing just as Heather began. I finished the book the same day I started... well, into the wee hours of the morning of the following day (before Heather got her copy!). Karyn and I felt guilty for getting ahead of Heather, and guilty for not telling her! Karyn came clean quick; I fibbed for a little while...she knew all along. 


I don't like to give too much away when reviewing books. That being said, I'm not going to talk too much about the details of this book, but more so give you some of our personal feedback and why we could've talked for ions about it. 




Night Road is a fictional novel, giving you all the feels of an "easy read" in the first part of the story. I say easy, but still an enjoyable read. The story begins with some teenagers in the early 2000s. Without giving away our very youthful ages, let's just say this brought back some familiar memories from when we were going through teen hood. The author takes the reader through some necessary character background and helps develop key relationships. There was something in there for us all to relate with. Whether a reminiscent memory from our once high school social life, the relationship we had with our parents as teens, or the relationship we have now with our own teens. Another connection that was relatable for each of us, to a degree, was the marriage of Jude and Miles, the parents of two teenaged characters. All of this gave open opportunity for us to have some pretty thorough conversation about our own upbringings, early experiences, parenting, marriage, family, and friendships. As we progressed into the second part of the story the plot shifted, taking it from an "easy feel" read, to, "I can't get to the next page fast enough." The overall feedback between the three of us was similar, but we did have some differences. 

 Although the first half of the book was that "easy feel" kind of read, I really enjoyed how much it brought me back to the days of dating my high school boyfriend, now husband. The excitement of a new crush, the first kiss, and keeping very dramatic secrets from friends and parents...It was all so familiar, and I ate it up! Once the shift in the story took place, I couldn't put the book down, but I personally found much of it to be predictable. I felt Kristin Hannah trying to keep me guessing, but my guesses were right most of the time, and in a way, that disappointed me. Interestingly enough, Karyn didn't find the book predictable at all. Heather thought it was predictable, but her predictions turned out to be wrong! So, we were all in different boats on that, which is what makes our conversation so great! We all agreed that Hannah did a great job of getting the reader to truly feel the weight and emotional distress of one specific character; so much so that Heather commented how she didn't like that feeling at all, it was uncomfortable. We knew this was very much deliberate of the author! What we found flawed was, we were able to deeply feel what one character was feeling, while others we felt were lacking in character development. Additionally, the three of us mutually kept saying throughout our read, that a particular question should've been asked in the story, by a certain character, and it never was. Overall, the story offers much thought regarding relationships, trust, decision making, consequences, unpredictability, loss, grief, and hope. Like I said, you basically could talk for ions about it.

Ratings:

Karyn: (audio version) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Narration: 
Plot- 7
Character Development-5
Writing-7
Entertaining-9 


Krista: (hardcopy): ⭐⭐⭐
Plot-6
Character Development-6
Writing-6
Entertaining-8

Heather: (hardcopy)




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