Romance and other things

I bought this book after I fell in love with his writing in "Aristotle and Dante discover secrets of the universe". I knew that this book was not a romance (really I do read a lot of books in other genres :)), but subject matter hinted strongly that I need to be in the appropriate mood before starting this one. So it stayed in my TBR for few months, but yesterday I picked it up and I could not put it down, literally. I think this novel is another proof of the obvious - good writer can make any subject interesting and engaging. Not that I have not read about enough traumatized people in m/m romance novels (this book is NOT a romance of any kind), but I do not remember recently (or ever) reading a book which is devoted to the recovery from addiction almost exclusively and we are deeply in the head of Zach's (the narrator). Zach is in rehab and trying to recover from the alcoholic addiction. He does not remember how he got there (or he does not want to remember) and the story also deals with him slowly allowing himself to remember the other trauma he experienced. He interacts with his roommates, his therapist, he also has a lot of imaginary conversations :), and this is pretty much all that happens in this book and I loved being an observer of that. It is a very character oriented book.

It is very painful being in Zach's head, but it also raw, honest and very exhilarating to see him slowly moving to the better place in his life. There are no guarantees that he won't relapse to drinking, there are no guarantees of anything, but we can see that he has a good chance of having more and more good days .