The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

 

(Photo taken from Goodreads)

Title:  The Fates Will Find Their Way
Author:  Hannah Pittard
Publisher:  HarperCollins
Publication Date:  1/25/2011

Language: English

Format:  Digital copy

Pages:  155 pages
ISBN-10:  006199605X Hardcover

ISBN-13:  978-0061996054 Hardcover

Source:  Advanced reader's digital copy from HarperCollins, via NetGalley

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Rating:

The story opens with the disappearance of 16-year old  Nora Lindell, and a speculation of her whereabouts.  However, although she is present almost in the entire story, this is more focused on the life she left behind - the lives of her family, her younger sister and father, her friends, and especially the teenage boys who admired her from a distance.  The book is filled with uncertain fates for Norah, all the while detailing the lives of those teenage boys until they grew to be men and start their own families, each still fantasizing about Norah at the back of their minds.

I cannot connect with this book.  On some levels, I thought it was poignant, endearing, and funny even, but I just could not feel myself getting drawn into reading it.  I finished this book for the sake of finishing it, but I never really appreciated its story much.  Which is not to say that this is a bad book.  Maybe we just lacked chemistry, maybe I just lacked the enough number of brain cells to relate to this one.  If you've been planning to read this, don't let my opinions affect your decision - you might love this in spite of what I said.

Talking about the technical aspects of the story, this is very well-written and eloquent, compelling and wise.  The story is told through a first-person plural point of view of those teenage boys, progressing through their adulthood.  It did drag towards the middle, but the humor and the dreamy quality with which the narration was written would get you through the end.  

The main theme here is 'maybe.'  Maybe Nora died, maybe Nora went somewhere, maybe, maybe maybe.  These teenage boys - though not really obsessed - would often wonder about her and what has happened to her, and conjecture about her disappearance are detailed in this book.  Only the reader could decide which to believe.

What is very noticeable here, however, is how these teenage boys never really got past their young adult years.  They went to college, took wives, had kids, but they could not finally and completely break free from the grasp of youth and in my opinion, Nora's pervasive presence in their minds was the symbolic refusal of their minds to turn adult.  Most of the humor from this book would come from the fact that they never really got over their teenage lives, even fantasizing about a 'hot' mother of one of their friends, going through the same arguments with each other that they've been having since they were young, it was funny to read about grown men trying to act like boys, which hit me that not being able to let go of Nora's memory was equivalent to not being able to let go of their teenage years.

I know that there was so much to like about this book, but I just could not understand why I cannot relate.  Maybe because I took this expecting a story more focused on Nora than these boys.  Again with the maybe.  This book has a lot of that and more, therefore, I say give this book a chance.  Maybe it will end up your favorite.

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I received this book free of charge from the publisher, HarperCollins through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest and truthful review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.