OLIVER LOVING was a very pleasant surprise. Stefan Merrill Block has written a moving story about grief and love, and what those two powerful emotions can do to a family. It's a novel that touches upon quite a few contemporary American issues (school shootings being an obvious one). The author's prose is excellent, and the story unfolds at a slow, but not ponderous pace. A thought-provoking novel. I'd be interested in reading more by the author.

Flatiron Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Oliver Loving. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Oliver Loving decides to attend a school dance, in the hopes of grabbing the attention of the female classmate for which he has a crush. When violence abruptly ends life for Oliver as he knows it, how will his family and community react? Nearly ten years later, Oliver lies wordless and paralyzed at Crockett State Assisted Care Facility, his fate still unknown. Will an unexpected medical innovation finally provide the proof that the young man's memories and mental facilities are intact?

This fictionalized account of a school shooting and its aftermath mimics situations that have occurred all too often in recent memory. As the town looks for someone to blame, racism plays a prominent role. The inclusion of this scenario helps to give the novel an air of realism, which speaks well to the author's abilities in crafting a plausible story. Where Oliver Loving falls short, however, is with the characterization and the actual plot. There are few likable characters and the meandering plot does not give the book any sense of urgency. The eventual reveal of the meaning behind the tragic events feels like an afterthought, as is Oliver's true medical condition. The author does not go far enough to make the novel stand out, so I would be hesitant to recommend Oliver Loving to other readers.

This is a heart-breaking story about Oliver who was shot in the head after a terrible shooting at his high school I think that this is such an important topic considering how many school shootings that continues to occur across the nation. The novel is written from Oliver and his family's perspective on how they coped with the aftermath of the tragedy.

Merrill Block's writing is beautiful and unique. The only issues that I had with this book is I felt that it dragged on and was too long. I think that the middle could have been cut some and I feel that this would have made the story a lot better. I feel like it was a tad bit too wordy for my taste in reading but nonetheless I am glad to have experienced this author's talent.

Overall 3 stars. Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron for the advanced arc.
Publication date: 1/16/18.
Posted to GR/Amazon: 3/17/18

Ten years ago the small border town of Bliss, Texas, Hector Espina walked into his former high school on Homecoming night and shot a teacher and several students, including Oliver Loving. Oliver survived if that’s what you want to call it, continuing for the next decade in a persistent vegetative state. This tragedy fractured his hometown and his family, though we learn that many of the fractures were already in place. Anglo and Latino hostility and divisions were already existent, but the shooting inflamed passions. Oliver’s father Jed was already drinking too much and retreating into depression. His mother, Eva already held her children too close, already fearing their graduation and eventual independence. Charlie already felt less loved and alienated, recognizing his rural Texas hometown might not be a safe place to come out. The family and the town were atomized by the shooting.

Ten years later, a study using an MRI found that Oliver had more brain activity than they thought. This brings Charlie home, drawing the family together in hope. Meanwhile, Manuel Paz, the local Texas Ranger, is hopeful he can finally understand why this shooting happened even though it’s too late for answers to save the town of Bliss, too late for closure, but then Manuel recognizes that “Closure was just a prayer for an ending that would never come, just a professional-sounding word for another hollow kind of faith”



Oliver Loving has moments of transcendently beautiful writing. For example, describing this border country of Texas, Charlie thinks about “All those history-crushed people. His own ancestors, trying to establish human time in the eternity of a desert that so quickly brushed it away. A wind rose from the west, a ghostly abstraction of dust lifting through the air, depositing itself over Bliss, sanding a few more grains from the façades of Main Street. Then the dust sucked up into the immaculate blue overhead, sighed off into the nothing to the east.”

Oliver Loving is also full of honesty about how racism divides a community, how tragedy can shatter so many more lives than are obvious, and how we can most hurt those we love. There is every ingredient for an outstanding and thrilling book. However, it is not. The biggest problem is that it just goes on and on far too much. The book would be twice as good if it were half as long. So much is unnecessary and repetitive. In particular, the chapters featuring Oliver, told in the second person, seem repetitive and over-written. This book is well-written enough to put Stefan Merrill Block on a list of authors to look for but in the future, someone needs a very busy red pencil.

I received an e-galley of Oliver Loving from the publisher through NetGalley.

I couldn't get into this one. The premise is intriguing, but it didn't capture my attention. Did not finish.

The story of Oliver Loving, his family, and the town of Bliss was complicated and messy, much like real life. I enjoyed the writing style and how well we got to know some characters, however, the book dragged on by focusing too much on some characters and not enough on others.

Oliver Loving by Stefan Merrill Block tells the heartbreaking story of a close-knit Texan family torn apart by the events of a school shooting a decade in the past. Oliver and Charlie are brothers and one night while at a school dance Oliver is shot. He has spent the past decade living a permanent vegetative state while his mother refuses to let him go. Charlie eventually moves to New York City where he tries to live life in a manner that he thinks Oliver would have done if the shooting hadn't occurred. The family struggles as they each learn how and why they need to let Oliver go. Read and enjoy!

A West Texas high school, a racially divided school and town. A high school homecoming dance, shots ring out, four dead, six wounded. The shooter, a recent highschool grad, also dead. Is there any subject more feared? Something that keeps happening again and again. As I was finishing this , the latest school shooting in rural Kentucky was on the news. Gave me the shivers.

I can't say that this is the fastest moving book, it is not. It takes patience as the writer peels away the many layers to these characters and this story. Oliver Loving, has now laid in his bed for ten long years. Shot in the head, he is considered to be in a vegetative state. In the afternoon of the shooting the school closed, the town virtually died with the students and the cracks in Oliver's parents marriage became irreversible. All the unanswered questions haunt many, which did the shooter shoot and could anything have been done to prevent what happened?

This is a well written book, we see the changes in all those involved as the years pass. It will not be until the end that we hear what occurred and why. If this book did anything it reminded me that I can turn off my television, or just not watch, but for many after these shootings, they have no such choice. It will always be with them, those directly involved as well as those peripherally involved.Those who feel guilty and wish they had done something. A warning perhaps that maybe we see more than we know or realize.

ARC from Netgalley.


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Oliver's story is deep like a pool and you keep swimming deeper and deeper for answers. It was so beautifully written and the structure was nice to have due to the various perspectives displayed in the story. I found this story to be tragically beautiful despite the length of the book, which could have been shorter and still display its brilliance. The topic is very current due to the various school related shooting and other shootings that have occurred over the past few years alone. Over all beautifully written and it made my heart ache. I would recommend it to others. Thank you Flatiron Books for an advanced e-copy via Netgalley.

Wow... This is a story that will take some time to really digest. If there was ever an ending I could dislike more, then I don’t want to read it!

The writing, especially the poetry, was beautiful. I was glad the story focused not only on the teenagers, but the adults too,as they tried to make sense of the tragedy.

In part, this novel is a horrifying story of how one young man’s personal trauma multiplied into the loss of so many in the small Texan town of Bliss. The novel is also the story of how one particular family refuses to let go of their son Oliver. These answers are never easy. Hope, while sometimes hard to find, is even harder to let go.

I did enjoy this book and appreciated the questions it brings to mind. Many thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron books for the advanced readers copy!

This has to be one of the most beautifully written novels I’ve read in a very long time. The prose has a rhythm to it that is mesmerizing, drawing the reader into a seeming dream that eventually becomes a nightmare.

Stefan Merill Block’s Oliver Loving takes on what the public seems to have become inured to, a school shooting, and raises the bar. Oliver Loving, the oldest and beloved son of Eve Loving, lies unable to move in a nursing facility where, typically, people put their elderly relatives to die. But Eve is unwilling to let Oliver go. She knows that he’s in there somewhere.

It takes the youngest son, Charlie, to ask: what if he has been in there? What if he’s been conscious, able to hear and think? What then? Which is not something Eve wants to think about, nor anyone else really.

There is no question as to who did the shooting, but one question is why. People are quick to become angry, point fingers, blaming it on Latinos, although he was American born. As the story continues to unfold, with bits of information disseminated along the way, it becomes obvious that nothing is easily explained. And when the truth is finally revealed, many people must look inward for what they chose and chose not to see in their community.

Block cares about the characters in his novel. No one is written off. Each is dealt with kindly. I found this refreshing in a world which wants to turn the gray to black and white. A drunk is not just a drunk, he is above all a person with layers and feelings and remorse and joy.

Perhaps the biggest endorsement for me of Oliver Loving is that I continued to think about it for long after I’d read the last page.

If you’re a fan of thoughtful, literary fiction, I think you’ll love this book. In fact, if you’re a reader of any kind and love words well written, read this book.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Summary:
(Courtesy of Goodreads)
One warm, West Texas November night, a shy boy named Oliver Loving joins his classmates at Bliss County Day School’s annual dance, hoping for a glimpse of the object of his unrequited affections, an enigmatic Junior named Rebekkah Sterling. But as the music plays, a troubled young man sneaks in through the school’s back door. The dire choices this man makes that evening —and the unspoken story he carries— will tear the town of Bliss, Texas apart.
Nearly ten years later, Oliver Loving still lies wordless and paralyzed at Crockett State Assisted Care Facility, the fate of his mind unclear. Orbiting the still point of Oliver’s hospital bed is a family transformed: Oliver’s mother, Eve, who keeps desperate vigil; Oliver’s brother, Charlie, who has fled for New York City only to discover he cannot escape the gravity of his shattered family; Oliver’s father, Jed, who tries to erase his memories with bourbon. And then there is Rebekkah Sterling, Oliver’s teenage love, who left Texas long ago and still refuses to speak about her own part in that tragic night. When a new medical test promises a key to unlock Oliver’s trapped mind, the town’s unanswered questions resurface with new urgency, as Oliver’s doctors and his family fight for a way for Oliver to finally communicate — and so also to tell the truth of what really happened that fateful night.
A moving meditation on the transformative power of grief and love, a slyly affectionate look at the idiosyncrasies of family, and an emotionally-charged page-turner, Oliver Loving is an extraordinarily original novel that ventures into the unknowable and returns with the most fundamental truths.
My thoughts:
      Full disclosure, I didn't finish this book.  Actually, I didn't even get through half of it.  While I loved the idea of it (the blurb was amazing!) the writing style was too scattered.  It went from one POV to another and while they were all labeled and each one had a different voice, it was hard to keep up between timelines.  Also, the author was really verbose... like J.R.R. Tolkien verbose.  
        Now, this book is getting some really stellar reviews.  I honestly think this is one of those books you either love or hate.  Sadly I hated it, but if I had forced myself to keep going maybe- MAYBE- it would redeem itself.  I just don't have the time nor the inclination at this time.  For me this is a two star book.  
         On the adult content scale, there is some violence and I don't know what else because I gave up.  I cannot in good conscious give it a number.  
      I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Flatiron Publishing in exchange for an honest review.  My thanks.

As I began this story of a young man struck down as part of a school shooting, I was immediately reminded of a book I read recently, Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles in which another young man is miraculously made whole after a wartime explosion. . In this story, however there is no miracle. After the shooting, Oliver retains his consciousness within a totally paralyzed body. The story is a mystery as Oliver's family and the reader try to determine why the shooter, who died in the carnage, sought out those particular victims. Was it random or something more? The answers are revealed slowly as the story unfolds.
The story is also a profile of a struggling family in the ironically named town of Bliss, Texas. A better name would have been Regret. Oliver is not the only character paralyzed in this story, as we meet family members and friends who are unable to break free from the choices of their lives.
The book was powerful but unfortunately I couldn't shake the feeling of claustrophobia created by Oliver's "locked-in" syndrome. As a result I had to take frequent breaks to shake the sense of imprisonment. I appreciated the writing in this book intellectually, but it did not move me the way my favorites do.

Thank you to MacMillan and NetGalley for allowing me to read Oliver Loving, by Stefan Merrill Block.
Oliver Loving, small town TX boy, didn’t really want to attend his school dance, but with his fathers insistence and his hope of being with the girl of his dreams, Rebekkah Sterling, he goes, only to have his life change by tragedy. The town has no idea why Hector would go to the dance and do what he did, but Oliver’s family keeps pursuing the truth, which shocks and saddens the whole town. This is a beautiful book about the good and evil in people and how these collide to change a town and the people forever.

My apologies but I was unable to finish this book. I find it to be a writing style that I was not fond of with lots of long descriptive prose passages, little dialogue, and a bit dry.

I honestly could tell by the writing of the first 2 chapters that it wouldn't be a good fit for our box and had to put it down. I may read it again in the future!

2.5

I was very excited about "Oliver Loving" and entranced at the start. However, as they story progressed, I began to lose the thread with every character but Oliver, living in his half life , or maybe not at all. Stefan Merrill Block does a wonderful job of creating Oliver, teen from a very small West Texas town who is shot by another kid and left in what is believed to be a permanent vegetative state. Of course, his family is destroyed. His mother does not lose hope but his father and brother go down the drain. And Oliver . . . we don't really know. Is he dreaming in his state, or are these the memories of those around him?

Ultimately, I couldn't make the entire journey and stopped trying. Some readers will love this book. I'll wait for Block's next work.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for an advanced copy of this book. Below is my honest opinion.

I tried to get into this book but could not do it. I put it down about halfway through.

The story is about a boy, his family, and his community. The boy, Oliver, was shot at school during a terrible incident. He remains unresponsive nearly a decade after the injury. His mother still looks after her now adult son when it is learned through medical exams that there may be something left of Oliver outside of this unresponsive man. The premise of this story intrigued me but the story fell flat for me.

There are multiple points of view in this book. However, Oliver's point of view is told in second-person. I'm not a huge fan of this method (unless I get to choose my adventure along the way) but this is not the only reason I did not enjoy this book. The characters, Oliver, his family, secondary characters, were not particularly liable. That's not to say they are unlikable, more they were easy to be indifferent about. Very little action in this book left me bored.

This book addresses a lot of emotions, struggles, questions. It seemed to be a timely story – Oliver Loving has been in a coma for ten years as the result of a shooting at his school. The survivors and their families are left with lots of questions. But the primary focus is on Oliver’s family.

The story itself was good but the writing was just too slow paced for me. Written from various perspectives, the story bounced around too much. In my opinion the book could have been much shorter as some chapters really seemed to add nothing to the story.

'Spooky Action at a Distance: it wasn’t only your family or the people of your town that were tangled up with you in that vexing physics.'

A young man commits an act that sucks Oliver Loving, full of passionate unrequited love for one Rebekkah Sterling, into a black abyss of half existance. The is he, isn’t he there question plagues his family, and haunts the girl he never had the chance to love. His brother, his parents, the community and Rebekkah never truly move on from that tragic November night when a simple dance turned to nightmare. There aren’t enough miles to escape the gravity of Oliver’s bed-bound presence, but is there enough faith for a miracle?

A decade has come and gone, or remained a stillness as Oliver lives in Crockett State Assisted Care Facility, unable to communicate, with no way to determine just how much of his mind is alive. His mother Eve has never given up on him, his father is an absence though just as chained to that bed as his beloved son, his brother Charlie an escapee living in New York, destined to return when a new medical test promises to be key in contacting Oliver. Will it bring Rebekkah back? Charlie has always known there was more to that ill fated night than she let on. Just what did she know? Why won’t she speak of it?

There is so much sorrow tangled in the before and after. the measure we give time that is just an illusion. The now, it is always now and what comes to pass begins at the same point as it ends. Each character is trapped in a destiny poisoned by choices, small fissures that appeared long before a gunmen chose to take lives. Lingering, so much lingers in this novel. There is devastation for Charlie in the hopeless longing his mother has (her attention riveted on his brother’s lifeless form), in his attempts to be the son Eve needs him to be the one his brother perfected and his father’s decision to absent himself from the family. There is something sickeningly casual in the way his father Jed sinks welcomingly into his dark sorry moods, unable to face work, Oliver, life… Eve has always had to be the solid presence, by default when Jed subtracted himself, and after the tragedy he becomes more phantom than husband and father.

The reader gets the full effect Oliver’s precarious existance has over the town, more importantly over his family and his first serious love, his only love. Just how did Oliver end up where he was that night? What led to the shooting? Secrets refuse to remain silent forever, but just who will reveal everything? How can Oliver possibly be the catalyst to answers, when he lies silent as death? It’s a novel about becoming, and wonder, the sheer wrongness of fates whims and love, always love. It is the whisper of thoughts and scream of actions, the seemingly randomness of terror when it lands upon bystanders. But none of us are bystanders, not really. Existenance isn’t a housebroken animal, an act is never on a leash, love and hatred can both be contagions and cures. I do realize I am running away with my thoughts here. It’s just the sort of book that reminds you there is no such thing as seperate, and yet could Oliver be any further from his loved ones?

This, I think, will be a different book to the old than it is to the young. At the end, I felt release and sorrowful happiness and yet it is not a happy book. What happens is horrific, unjust! I was so sad when I figured out the why of it all but it was beautiful too. People let you down and pull you up. Those in our lives hold on when they should let go and give up when they should fight- how flawed we are. The pause in the trajectory of Oliver’s life, tragedy is such a weak word, but there it is.

Publication Date: January 16, 2018

Flatiron Books