Sing Unburied Sing

I really REALLY wanted to give this a better review! The writing is excellent, there has been so much buzz about it, it won the National Book Award, there are many reasons why I should have liked it, but I can't lie. I wasn't feeling it. The book follows three characters: Jojo, a thirteen year old boy who is mature beyond his years and just wants to be like his grandfather and make sure his younger sister gets taken care, his mother Leonie, a never present parent who spends more time pining after her incarcerated boyfriend and doing drugs, and finally there is Richie, another thirteen year old boy with an unsettling past. Leonie takes her two children on a road trip to see their father released from prison and while there, Jojo encounters Richie, a boy whose story HE KNOWS. Jojo is by far the greatest character in this sad family saga, he is strong, wise, questioning, and more of a parent to his younger sister than his mother, Leonie could ever hope to be. I briefly sympathized with his mom, but it's hard when she constantly chooses herself and her boyfriend over her own children. She is the literal worst. I'm with Jojo, she could die and the world would be a better place. Same goes for his deadbeat dad. The story only spans a few days, but it feels like a lifetime. And, Richie... Richie helps add another layer to the story, it helps deepens the saga. Even though he's not quite a family member, he has something to add. The story was artfully done, but it didn't resonate with me.

Audiobook Review for the Library Journal - Lookaway Lookaway

Barnhardt, Wilton. Lookaway, Lookaway. 13 CDs. unabridged. 16 hrs. MacMillan Audio. 2013. ISBN 9781427229328. $49.99. 

Barnhardt's fourth novel is a tour de force, chronicling a majestic southern family's rise and fall in true Victorian era fashion. The Johnston and Jarvis family saga spans several decades and is stunning in it's honesty, cleverness, and dark humor. Jerene Jarvis Johnston strives to uphold her southern affluent roots and traditions in Charlotte, North Carolina, but as the twenty first century progresses and southern lifestyles and society changes she finds it harder to maintain the facade. Her four children lead vastly different lives than she had envisioned for them, her good for nothing alcoholic and celebrity author brother constantly makes a mess which she has to clean up, her mother doesn't have the common decency to die and stop being a thorn in their side, and to top it all off her saintly husband, Duke, has some skeletons in his closet. An engaging and inventive romp into the rise and fall of one of the most eclectic southern families you wished you knew. Narrated brilliantly by North Carolina native, Scott Shepherd, who give all the characters a voice their own in true southern accents. Scott gives them all perfect inflections, sarcasms, and tones; I can envision no other narrator carrying out such a fine job on this novel. For fans of southern literature and dark family sagas. A MUST read for the fall! Erin Cataldi, Franklin College, Franklin, IN