by Mark W. Sasse
Book: Stand Alone
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pub Date: Oct 2013
Genre: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Source: Author
Book Links: Goodreads Amazon
Red Hat hijacks a yoghurt truck and barrels into the Chester Walz Bank at full speed, desperate to open a safety deposit box.
The twins, beckoned by an ominous streak of light across the sky, climb Harper’s Hill to encounter an apparition of their missing father.
The reverend stands on a muddy ridge, the barrel of the rifle in his neck, looking down on a Vietnamese village, scarred by war and regret.
The stories come to Margaret at all times, but they are anything but random. A fractured view of Michael Cheevers’ red hat through a discreetly cracked door sends her off on adventure. A glimpse of the Johnson twins from apartment 2D takes her to the lonely hill on a Midwestern prairie in 1887. The regular letters from Reverend Davies, who has tried to look after Margaret since the death of her mother, brings her to the brink of exhaustion, staring intensely into the heart of war deep in the jungle of Vietnam.
Margaret is not insane, at least not in a clinical sense. She’s like a midnight raccoon, painfully aware of her surroundings, gleaming crumbs of information at every turn; eyes peering incessantly in the night, stealing glances of neighbors behind partially opened doors.
But the tales that she weaves were not meant to merely hold empty court to the receptive dead air of her apartment. Her stories were meant to embolden the lives of the inhabitants of that drab apartment block because her story is also their story—and everything would be different if they could only hear her stories.
The Recluse Storyteller weaves five stories into one as the loner Margaret not only searches for meaning from her reclusive life, but also gives meaning in the most unexpected ways to the troubled souls of her apartment complex. Part adventure, part tragedy, and part discovery, The Recluse Storyteller bridges genres, bringing hope, life, and redemption to the broken relationships of modern society
My Review: So I got this book from the author to review. When I read about it I thought it was a cool book and even my husband liked the idea of the story, and he doesn't read much outside his manga stories. So this book has twists and turns that easily made me think more about what was going on.
The story flows just right right all the way through the book. As you the book you get a sense of the characters and how they will be through the book and just be able to imagine the characters and what they are going through at points in the book. You'll think about what a good storyteller Mark Sasse is while reading it. Though he isn't a recluse like Margaret. Now she is a recluse and her stories will change lives in this book. Margaret has her own story, then there are others who want to know about more of her story, about a vet and his inner demons, twins, and other characters that will have their lives changed in the book.
Now because of Margarets mothers death, she doesnt really venture outside of the apartment she lives in. She lives alone and talks to the people down the hall and to herself. So she leaves her house late at night once a week to do her food shopping in hopes not to see anyone she may know. She has an imagination, and is always slipping in and out of her imagination. Which goes all over the place, though she is a smart girl who writes manuals and such as an income for herself.
Margaret is one interesting character that you will like and maybe even question some things about her imagination. Some things she imagines is just....odd but still a good book to read.
My Rating:
✪✪✪✪
