This American Noir-esque book is wonderful. It reads like a thriller, and even though it's fiction, this feels like real life. It's two days and two nights in the life of Lynette. She works two jobs and then some, dreaming of buying the house she rents and shares with her mother and brother. It's about hope, despair and the broken american dream. It was phenomenal.

Thank you to Harper and Harper Audio for the early digital copies in exchange for an honest review.

Audiobook is narrated by Christine Lakin; 6 hrs and 5 mins long.

The audiobook for this is actually well done! I think Lakin did a wonderful job voicing all the characters for just being one narrator. It didn't make me cringe. The narrator has a voice that I can listen to for long periods of time.

Lynette wants a stable future with her brother, Kenny, and her mother. She plans to put a down payment on the house they currently live in and have her mom get a loan for the rest. About a week before they seal the deal, her mother buys a new car and refuses to buy the house. Out of panic and greed, Lynette sets out on a journey that puts her in a downward spiral.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was dramatic and entertaining. I didn't find any of the characters likable, except for Lynette's brother, and I think that was the point of the story. Lynette made me want to pull my hair out from the choices she made. I know life isn't fair but she took it to the next level. It's wild what humans will do during desperate times.

My one main gripe with the story is that it really throws the word "depression" around. I know that in today's society, that topic is talked about a lot, but this felt added for shock factor. Not what I want in my books. That's the main reason I dropped the rating a star.

This gave me "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" vibes because of the deadbeat mother who forces her children to do everything. I enjoyed this and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested. Be mindful of the trigger warnings for this book.

had never heard of Willy Vlautin until recently but I’m very glad to have found him. Part crime, part survival, but all the other side of the ‘American Dream’ and the everyday greed of society
‘So this is my advice to you, Lynette: at the end of the day, just look out for yourself and screw everybody else’. That’s solid advice.

The atmosphere of this book was super cool! The story was pretty average to me but still definitely enjoyable!

An absorbing, descriptive account of Lynette, a young woman working unbelievably hard to provide her brother care and keep her household afloat amidst gentrification in Portland. Once I met Lynette, I couldn't imagine abandoning her on the page; I had to see if she and Kenny were going to be okay. Compulsively readable and less than 250 pages, it is easy to read in one sitting.

I think it is better not to read the synopsis for The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin if you can possibly help it, as it gives away A LOT of what this book is about without leaving much to the imagination. It is a very hard read and in general rather depressing. I couldn't believe the things that were happening to Lynette and my heart was just breaking for her throughout the entire book. It is a really short novel, and the audiobook comes in at a whopping 6-ish hours, but boy does it pack an emotional punch. My mouth dropped open multiple times at the various things Lynette faces, and it was shocking in a very raw sort of way. I am honestly surprised I wasn't in tears for any of this book, but it hit me in other sorts of ways and Vlautin explores greed and desperation to a full extent.

I did listen to the audio which is narrated by Christine Lakin and man was she good. She was the perfect person to be the voice of Lynette and she definitely did a fantastic job of getting the emotion of the story across. This is straight-up literary fiction to me, and there is no mystery, but it did feel very suspenseful since you never know what will happen next. Even though it is basically one bad thing after another and it feels like Lynette will never catch a break, the end does leave the reader feeling hopeful. It left me wishing there was more to the story since the whole thing was so sad, but I am glad it left us with some hope, or I really would have been depressed! I would recommend The Night Always Comes if you are a fan of gritty, emotional reads and don't mind if they have a gloomy/ominous feeling throughout.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A gritty story that takes place over two days, this novel captures the lives of a family in Oregon. Lynette is desperate to buy a home but her mother has changed her mind about helping. The novel tells the story of their relationship and much more. It is not an uplifting story but is very well written and interesting. Lynette is a sympathetic character who is trying to improve her life against circumstances. Her love of Kenny and her overall sense of doing right, make her someone we root for. The setting in the novel is a big part of the overall feeling - much of the action takes place at night, and often in an unfamiliar and seemingly unsafe environments. At anytime I wasn't sure what the story trajectory would be, but I found it to move well and cover a lot of character development in a short space.

I had the pleasure of reading this book after release. I found it both thrilling and deeply true. Would highly recommend to any fan of American fiction or physiological thrills

This really captured the struggle of those that live paycheck to paycheck and areas of increased gentrification and wealth. Lynette is definitely not a perfect protagonist, but I understand the desperation that drove her to some of her choices. She wanted to own something that was hers, which is really quintessentially the American dream, but had so many strikes against her (her parents, her mental health, her limited education, her special needs brother), so I was definitely rooting for her.

Another in a stunning series of books by a great writer. Vlautin takes up where Steinbeck left off in chronicling the woes of the working class in America. His characters and his dialogue are spot on. This is life smacking you in the face. Beautifully rendered with heart and soul. Empathy for the plight of his characters permeates the page. A wonderful heart-felt rendering of life in the age of the shrinking middle-class.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for allowing me to read and review this book. Published April 6, 2021.

This story is two days in the life of Lynette. Inching towards thirty years old she is still living with her mother and mentally disabled brother. Not that she hasn't lived elsewhere, but due to her own mental instability she ended back up at home.

Lynette is striving toward home ownership. She works herself crazy - in addition to being the main caregiver for Kenny her older brother, while her mother spends mostly idle hours laying on the couch watching TV and smoking.

Expecting her mother to carry the most of a loan to buy the house they are currently in, things begin to fall apart. Lynette takes major chances, not all of them legal, to acquire the $80,000 down payment, only to find out that there is more pressing problems ahead.

I really enjoyed this short book. It read well and was easy to like the protagonist, and just as easy to dislike a portion of the characters. The story was well balanced and plot driven. The ending was great - however not what you really expected. This was my first Vlautin book, but probably not my last.

Dark, gritty, and somehow unputdownable. Some of the writing style was weird and I almost felt like I was reading a play, with physical character descriptions and pages of dialogue. But a quick read and one I’ll think about for a while.

I just could not read this book. None of the characters were engaging and the woman at the center had so little personality that she was just a cipher.

This book was so bleak. I really appreciated the glimpse into gentrification and the awful domino effect that comes along with it, but I felt that the plot itself seemed discombobulated and that I didn't connect to the main character enough to feel emotionally impacted. I wanted more of her internal thoughts rather than just a telling of events. I also felt that in a story like this so focused on gentrification, it would have been great to dive into how racism comes into play, but that factor was never mentioned.

I am not sure how I feel about this book. The story is compelling and I couldn’t put it down, but it is depressing, raw, and an emotional rollarcoaster. It contains violence, drugs, self-loathing. But it is well written and sadly, I feel it is realistic. It is a coming of age story.

This is a depressing, ugly story. It is about Lynette's fight for survival, and moving up the social ladder. On the way she's fighting against all odds, society and her own mother.
She is one of the forgotten people, the ones on the fringe, working 2, 3 4 jobs in housing that barely stands, driving cars (or taking buses) for hours to get to minimum wage jobs that never, ever, ever cover the bills. Slowly being pushed out of their housing neighborhood by the ever rising prices, this story is of a family barely surviving.

It was so hard to get through this story, not because there was anything wrong with the writing or the story, but because it was so REAL.

Thank you NetGally for the ARC and the chance to review this book.

Dark and depressing, but well written and a quick read. Riveting! Loved the characters, the way the author makes us know all of them, their thoughts and emotions. I like that it was set over 2 days of Lynette's life, but we saw so much of what made her the way she was in flashbacks to previous things that happened to her. I will definitely recommend this book for purchase!

. If you know you know (DM me.).
The Portrait of a Mirror
I have accidentally read a lot of Greek and Grecian-inspired books in the last few weeks. I love it when my reading picks up an accidental theme! Many thanks to @Netgalley and @publisherx for fueling my Grecian read-a-thon with The Portrait of a Mirror, a millenial retelling of the myth of Narcissus. .A. Natasha Joukovksy's debut novel centers on the entangled lives of two wealthy, glamorous, and highly-educated couples - Wes and Diana of New York and Vivien and Dale of Philadelphia. Diana's consulting job brings her in close contact with Dale while Vivien is named a visiting curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Very infidelity, much narcissism. How will these relationships evolve when everyone is acting an ass??.I want to give Joukovsky big props for delivering the layered nuevo-Greek novel I've been craving in this accidentally readathon. This story is peppered with witty, tongue-in-cheek references to ancient mythology. There is a payment company called Pegaswipe, for example, and Dale frequents a basement food court known as The Underworld. There are also the requisite references to Achilles heels and Trojan horses, plus a bunch of other stuff that probably went over my ignorant head. Is this book too smart for BookstaSam? Maybe..This is for sure one of those books where you are meant to dislike the characters, and dislike them I certainly do, though I appreciate the over-the-top self-awareness we see in Vivien in particular. My biggest criticism is that the passages about Diana and Dale's professional life were dense and kind of boring. .I don't think this book is for everyone, but if you are a Grecophile or have an interest in modern retellings, I think this one is right up your alley.
Fates and Furies
I don't like this book. That's my review. .Lotto and Mathilde get married on a whim just after college having only known each other a few days. Fates and Furies follows their relationship from its steamy nascense through the death of one partner. The first half of the book is told from Lotto's perspective; the second half from Mathilde's. Lotto aspires to be an actor, but his true talent lies in writing plays; Mathilde gives up her own career to support him. There's also some mama drama in that a) Lotto's mom never warms up to Mathilde and b) Lotto wants to be a parent but Mathilde does not..Every 50 pages or so the book changed directions, and I'm not really sure what the central theme is meant to be. I found Mathilde's story sad, traumatic, and inching up on anti-feminist. The book includes some excerpts from Lotto's plays. I wasn't that into the excerpts, but I did love that he wrote a modern retelling of Antigone called Go, mostly because it fits in well with my accidental spring Grecian readathon..Has anyone else read this one? I would love to discuss!

I went into this one blind and it was a mistake. Based on the spooky cover and title I thought "ooh! Horror!" or at least a thriller? The Night Will Always Come is neither of those things - it is a work of realistic literary fiction chronicling the life of a young woman grappling with mental illness and  intergenerational poverty in the Pacific Northwest, along with the petty and not-so-petty crime those themes beget.

Lynette lives with her mother and disabled brother in a rundown rental home in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Their landlord offers to sell the property to the family at a deeply discounted rate, but after years of impulsive decision making under the thumb of an unnamed mental illness, Lynette must rely on her unreliable mother to secure the requisite loan. When her mother abruptly pulls out of the deal, Lynette embarks on a well-intentioned crime spree in an effort to get the money together in time.

This was a really traumatic read that ultimately didn't pay off for me. I applaud Willy Vlautin's handling of the subject matter. I really felt for Lynette throughout; even as she made more and more reckless decisions, her actions made sense to me. Through Lynette's eyes, we see that crime isn't always black and white, and the ways in which desperation and poverty can push one person to become entangled with the darker side of society.

I found this book to be an interesting read, yet still couldn't quite hold on to finish it. The main character battles poverty, poor family relationships and really bad luck. I found this to be too depressing to continue (and read it during covid so this wasn't improving my mental health).

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. I could NOT stop reading this book. I was immediately hooked, and felt a ton of empathy for the main character. I loved the pace, it felt realistic but also surreal in some ways. Overall I was left with a deep sense of awareness that every person you meet has an entire story playing out that they are dealing with, and to treat everyone as if they're having a day like this.