Average Goodreads Rating: 3.83/5
My Rating: 5 our of 5 stars
Pages: 352
Release Date: February 7, 2012
One of the advantages of having a mom who works as a bookseller is I get to read a lot of great books that are Advanced Reader Copies (also known as an ARC). Some of my favorite books have been found because of these types of books including The Midnighters Series by Scott Westerfield, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, Aftertime by Sophie Littlefield, and Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. Luckily for you its not going to be too long before this book comes out because it is a great read, and a book that I think people should read. For this book, I'm going to go very light on the spoilers because its not readily available.
Synopses from Goodreads.com:
How long do you hold on to hope?
Danica Greene has always hated flying, so it was almost laughable that the boy of her dreams was a pilot. She married him anyway and together, she and Etsell settled into a life where love really did seem to conquer all. Danica is firmly rooted on the ground in Blackhawk, the small town in northern Iowa where they grew up, and the wide slashes of sky that stretch endlessly across the prairie seem more than enough for Etsell. But when the opportunity to spend three weeks in Alaska helping a pilot friend presents itself, Etsell accepts and their idyllic world is turned upside down. It’s his dream, he reveals, and Danica knows that she can’t stand in the way. Ell is on his last flight before heading home when his plane mysteriously vanishes shortly after takeoff, leaving Danica in a free fall. Etsell is gone, but what exactly does gone mean? Is she a widow? An abandoned wife? Or will Etsell find his way home to her? Danica is forced to search for the truth in her marriage and treks to Alaska to grapple with the unanswerable questions about her husband’s mysterious disappearance. But when she learns that Ell wasn’t flying alone and that a woman is missing, too, the bits and pieces of the careful life that she had constructed for them in Iowa take to the wind. A story of love and loss, and ultimately starting over, Far From Here explores the dynamics of intimacy and the potentially devastating consequences of the little white lies we tell the ones we love.
My Review with spoilers after the Jump!
Let me start this off by saying I cried while I read this book. While this wasn't a P.S I Love You by Celia Ahern intensity of crying, it was the same type of pain. Throughout the entire book I held onto this hope that Etsell Greene would return to his wife because they were meant to be more than Corey and Topanga. I was very sadly mistaken because that was not the type of book this was meant to be. In Far From Here, we are introduced to a young couple who have the love of a lifetime, only to have it lost while Etsell is piloting in Alaska.
There were a lot of surprises as you read this story and one of the is the fact that Etsell was believed to be on the plane with another woman. While Danica doesn't believe that her marriage was perfect, the idea of this happened causes her a lot of strife over a hundred or so pages until the woman is found. Since this woman, Samantha, had been hailed as able to survive anything as she was a great outdoors-woman, I was holding onto the hope that she and Etsell were together and that she would bring him home to Danica. I'm sorry to tell you this is not that type of love story.
It is a love story in which you realize that not every relationship is perfect. There will always be some kind of selfishness in a relationship. This book is about coming to terms with the fact that almost every movie will have a happy ending but it doesn't work like that in real life. No matter how much you want Etsell to come home so that they can appreciate one another, it's not going to happen and it a very sad day you come to the page where it says "Six months have passed." I mentioned earlier that I cried while reading this book, but I didn't start crying until the last 50 or so pages as Dani was letting go because for a while you felt like her friend who was privy to all of her undoing, and when she was finally learning that there was no hope left, you felt proud and sad at the same time that she was letting go of her love. That pride of watching this character grow and move through the different and out of order stages of grief.
This review is perhaps going to be the shortest one because I want you to go and read this book in particular. There is something to the relationship the reader can form with Danica and to learning that not everything is meant to work out. This book will show you that it is okay to move on.
Who would I recommend this to? Someone who has lost someone, there is something about not feeling alone as you're going dealing with your loss. I also think this is just a good book to read in general, but it is more of a book for women.
It is a love story in which you realize that not every relationship is perfect. There will always be some kind of selfishness in a relationship. This book is about coming to terms with the fact that almost every movie will have a happy ending but it doesn't work like that in real life. No matter how much you want Etsell to come home so that they can appreciate one another, it's not going to happen and it a very sad day you come to the page where it says "Six months have passed." I mentioned earlier that I cried while reading this book, but I didn't start crying until the last 50 or so pages as Dani was letting go because for a while you felt like her friend who was privy to all of her undoing, and when she was finally learning that there was no hope left, you felt proud and sad at the same time that she was letting go of her love. That pride of watching this character grow and move through the different and out of order stages of grief.
This review is perhaps going to be the shortest one because I want you to go and read this book in particular. There is something to the relationship the reader can form with Danica and to learning that not everything is meant to work out. This book will show you that it is okay to move on.
Who would I recommend this to? Someone who has lost someone, there is something about not feeling alone as you're going dealing with your loss. I also think this is just a good book to read in general, but it is more of a book for women.
