Where I Can't Follow
A Novel
-
-
4.2 • 6 Ratings
-
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
"Haunting and hopeful...a magic so vivid it feels more like a memory than a work of fiction."—Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches
NAMED A MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK BY Good Housekeeping, Gizmodo, Den of Geek, Tor.com, and more!
Walk through the door and leave all your problems behind…but you don't know what's on the other side. And once you leave, you'll never come back. Will you go through?
Maren Walker told herself she wouldn't need to sell pills for long, that it was only means to an end. But that end seems to be stretching as far away as the other side of Blackdamp County, Kentucky. There's always another bill for Granny's doctor, another problem with the car, another reason she's getting nowhere.
She dreams of walking through her little door to leave it all behind. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. All anyone knows is that if you go, you'll never come back.
Maren's mother left through her door when Maren was nine, and her shadow has followed Maren ever since. When she faces the possibility of escaping her struggles for good, Maren must choose just what kind of future she wants to build.
From critically acclaimed author Ashley Blooms, Where I Can't Follow explores the forces that hold people in place, and how they adapt, survive, and struggle to love a place that doesn't always love them back.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bloom's mild sophomore effort (after Every Bone a Prayer) explores the perils of mental illness and addiction in rural Blackdamp County, Ky., via the magical realist story of Maren Walker, who is grieving the death of her mother while caring for her ailing Granny. As the bills pile up, Maren resorts to selling Granny's pain pills, placing her on police radar and bringing up memories of her mother's addictions. A strange little door follows Maren, a known phenomenon in town that occurs when someone might need a way out—"The doors found the hurt, the lonely, the poorest, and the most desperate"—and the only fantastical element found in the novel. With the cops on her trail, Maren is tempted to make a break for it, but her mentally unwell friend, Julie, and Maren's on-again, off-again love interest, Carver (who is also Julie's older brother and has a troubled past), won't let her go that easily. The author tackles hard subjects, but only skates along the surface with easy fixes to big conflicts and characters who are flawed but underdeveloped, and the dense dialogue rarely feels like natural conversation. This falls short of the author's promising debut.
