***DNF***
Don't be discouraged, the writing is very good and I will read more from this author. The reason I didn't finish is because I don't like Samuel Hawley as a character so I don't want to dedicate more time to finding out about the rest of his twelve lives. The three or four lives I've already read about seem to me to be a direct result of his actions and choices so it's not all that remarkable or interesting. I do enjoy the chapters with his daughter, she seems like a good kid despite how she's grown up moving around with Sam; but her chapters are fewer and farther between. Perhaps one day I'll get curious enough to go back to this and finish it just to see what happens with the daughter and what, if anything, finally takes Sam down, but right now is not that time

The Need to Know: An epic adventure, Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley explores how we get to where we are and how we love our family, sins, foibles, and all.


The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley opens with Samuel Hawley teaching his 12-year-old daughter, Loo, how to shoot a gun. This small chapter tells us so much about the characters and the secrets that Tinti will reveal about their lives.

​First of all, Samuel taught Loo’s mother, Lily, how to shoot guns. This is our first mention of Lily, who has been dead since Loo was an infant and who is the subject of a “traveling shrine that her [Loo’s] father re-created in the bathroom of each place they lived.” She’s held up on a pedestal to Loo and used as an example of behavior that Loo should always strive to emulate. “When Loo did something well, her father said: Just like your mother, and when she did something bad, her father said: Your mother would never approve.”

Second, this is our first mention of guns, which come to be a fairly substantial part of the book. We’re told from the opening chapter that Hawley has lots of guns which he travels with, and he “was always watching. Always waiting.”

Samuel and Loo stop travelling the country to move to Olympus, Massachusetts, where Lily was from. Tinti intersperses their present life in Massachusetts with tales from the Hawley family’s past, including how Samuel got the many bullet holes which riddle his body and how Lily died. This is really where we learn some of their secrets, and how Samuel and Loo learn that the person that someone is now isn’t always the person they were before or the person they’ll be later.

When the moment of reckoning comes for the Hawley family, when Hawley’s past comes knocking, Tinti beautifully and powerfully delivers an ending that brings this glorious epic to a close.

The plot that I’ve provided here just doesn’t do this book justice. There are many scenes in the book which are action-heavy, but most of all I loved Tinti’s characterization and gorgeous language. Tinti is an excellent writer who weaves words and sentences together into rapturous prose.

Take this sentence about a whale: “The creature rolled sideways, a rotating school bus, and lifted its pectoral fin high in the air and then spun it easily and dove, showing the full running slick of its long back, until there was only the fluke rising, the tail’s ragged edge flecked with white, bending and scraping the surface of the heavens and then plunging deep into the earth.”

If you read this book, you’ll love it.

**I received my complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley, but all opinions expressed here are my own.

This was one of my early NetGalley requests and I am glad I finally got to it. I really liked the woven structure of Loo and Hawley’s stories, the past catching up with the present. The book may be too sympathetic to Hawley, who seems like a tough but loveable anti-hero. Loo is capable and teaches her father quite a bit. There was some excellent action writing.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is different, unpredictable, and beautifully written. It kept me at the edge of my seat, wondering what would come next. Highly recommended.

I loved this retelling of myth! I ended up teaching it to a class of 40 9th graders who enjoyed exploring the connections.

This novel received a LOT of pre-publication attention, and despite this making me hesitant, I think it's clear why it did get so much positive buzz.
Hannah Tinti's writing is excellent, as are her characters: brilliantly realized on the page, they're three-dimensional, and their relationships are great. The story, too, is excellent, and I was hooked from very early on.
Definitely recommended.

This is a great nook on relationships. This shows that not all relationships are easy but all are so exceptional with the different personalities involved. Each person can still be themself jo matter how they are raised.
Thank you NetGalley for the option to preview this hook
#Netgalley #DialPress #TheTwelveLiveaofSamuelHawley

I love the relationship between Samuel Hawley and Loo. There's a lot about Samuel that reminds me of my grandfather, with his gruff exterior hiding a soft underbelly.

“Start packing.” Loo had heard that from her father many times. They never stayed anyplace for long and Samuel and Loo Hawley always traveled light, except for all those guns. Loo never understood “All the guns in their house. All the scars on his body. All the ways that he was careful.” He carried around other scars too, and this book describes how he got every one of them. He is a terrific character - loving, loyal, violent and wild - and he raised a daughter who matched him. This book is perfect and I loved everything about it. Both the plot and writing are beautiful. I want to read more by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This was such a fantastic thriller. It's the perfect recommendation for anyone who like "grit fic" like Donald Ray Pollock. The relationship between the father and daughter is mesmerizing and the prose is excellent.

I really enjoyed the narrative structure of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. He follow his daughter Loo and Hawley as they live a fairly nomadic existence, finally choosing to settle down in the hometown of Loo's late mother. Interweaved within the story of them settling into the town is the story of how Hawley got the twelve bullet hole scars on his body. It was very fascinating, but I felt like the story ended up losing steam in the last quarter. I'd love to see this adapted and adored the father-daughter relationship that the two main characters had.

It's hard for me to put a finger on why I love this book so much. Great writing, of course. But the characters are also just so well developed that they seemed totally real to me. It really left an ache when it was all over.
Highly recommend!

Why is it always so much easier to talk about things you don't like? I literally do not have the words to explain why I loved this books so much. It just felt so perfect.

Beautifully written novel, but uneven story. Enjoyed Loo's perspective but began to dread the backstory of the bullets.
Thank you, Netgalley, for the e-review copy of this book.

I loved the author's writing and the story was really intriguing . I was really drawn in but in the end I was left with more questions than answers. I was hoping for more details and more of a resolution to the relationship between Lou and Samuel.

This book was unfortunately not a match for me, but thanks for the opportunity!

Not for me. I didn't care for the violence. I felt like the story dragged and that there wasn't enough of a payoff at the end.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti has been chosen as THE MARVELOUS NOVEL OF THE MONTH by The Marvelous Site. The review is a reviewaka, based on an ancient Japanese poetry form. (To learn more about reviewakas, you can go to http://tinyurl.com/reviewakas.)

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
by Hannah Tinti
c2017

while coming of age
criminal past told through scars
father-daughter bonds

compelling action surrounds
study of parental love

MM

I enjoyed this family story of a father and daughter duo. The story is told in alternating past and present chapters, while the hunt for the truth and hidden secrets unfolds. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is filled with quirky, lovable characters and will have readers turning pages. A fun mystery/literary fiction mix.

Overall, I found this to be a beautiful book about love and grief and how far we go on our journeys for each. The beginning was a little hard to get into because of the dual=timeframes, but once I got into the rhythm of it, it was easy to follow and really sucked me in. I found the ending to be a little too open for my tastes, but it didn't detract from my love of the book. Still thinking about it days after finishing.