We know the literary drill: Unassuming woman facing insurmountable challenges rises to the occasion in an inspiring journey of courage and pluck. Oh, and with a touch of romance … The literary drill would have Leni saving her family, by stealth and cunning, courage and pluck. And surely, she does what she can. But Hannah has created a complex and agonizingly relatable character … Hannah has created an atmosphere of brooding paranoia and simmering violence that can set your heart racing. Anticipated plot twists unravel unexpectedly. Leni is, by all marks, the strong woman here. But she’s how many of us would be strong: in fits and starts, undone by errors of judgment and misplaced trust.
Kristin Hannah’s new novel makes Alaska sound equally gorgeous and treacherous — a glistening realm that lures folks into the wild and then kills them there … We experience this harrowing tale from the point of view of their teenage daughter, Leni. She’s a book-loving girl, toughened by years of frequent moving, and a close student of her father’s capricious moods...While Ernt and Cora play out the captivating disaster of their union, Leni remains an irresistibly sympathetic heroine who will resonate with a wide range of readers … The weaknesses of The Great Alone are usually camouflaged by its dramatic and often emotional plot. It all skates along quickly, but slow down and you’re liable to crack through the thin patches of Hannah’s style. No Alaskan trail is marked as clearly as the path of this story, which highlights every potential danger.
It’s a heart-tugger written in borderline young adult style, combining terrible troubles with notes of overripe romance…The terrible troubles are completely one-note … The Great Alone is packed with rapturous descriptions of Alaskan scenery, which are the most reliably alluring part of it … Leni’s problems are dramatic enough to keep readers hooked, but she herself is good every minute of the day. Hannah gives her a kind of afterword, in which Leni writes: ‘Someone said to me once that Alaska didn’t create character; it revealed it.’ Maybe so. But we know who she is right from the start.
Folks don’t just have descriptive nicknames in Hannah’s Alaska; they have a tendency to use bumper-sticker-like slogans in everyday conversation ... Kristin Hannah has clearly found a commercial sweet spot, sticking to the ever-popular themes of young love, family drama, loss and redemption, but giving her novels a literary boost by placing them in historical settings ... But the tidy summaries Hannah often provides for her complex subjects aren’t needed, given her admirable storytelling skills. We’ve witnessed Leni’s growing discernment; we don’t need the book-club-ready clarifications that accompany too many scenes.
Hannah’s follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America. A tour de force.
Though smaller in scope than her previous blockbuster, in this tightly focused drama, Hannah vividly evokes the natural beauty and danger of Alaska and paints a compelling portrait of a family in crisis and a community on the brink of change.
Hannah’s vivid depiction of a struggling family begins as a young father and POW returns from Vietnam, suffering from PTSD … Hannah skillfully situates the emotional family saga in the events and culture of the late ’70s—gas shortages, Watergate, Ted Bundy, Patty Hearst, and so on. But it’s her tautly drawn characters—Large Marge, Genny, Mad Earl, Tica, Tom—who contribute not only to Leni’s improbable survival but to her salvation amid her family’s tragedy.
Hannah fills the pages with the terror, awe, beauty and almost unimaginable remoteness of the magnificent landscape, where a failure to stock enough firewood can mean freezing to death, and a single slippery misstep on a trail can end a life ... To follow up on the runaway international success of Hannah’s The Nightingale must have been a daunting challenge, and while The Great Alone may not eclipse that mega-seller, it’s a worthy successor.
