Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinion are my own.

"The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl is a wonderful, singular narrative that will spark conversation and reflection—a reminder that there is no such thing as an ordinary life, and the greatest accomplishment of all is to live and love fully."

This was a stunning book, and one that kept me hooked until the very last page. I loved the concept of following Isaac throughout his life and all of the weird and wonderful things that happened to him, His family were three-dimensional and so loveable and flawed, I loved reading about their lives just as much as I wanted an update on Isaac's.

It was funny and moving and heartwarming, and I cried at the last chapter. This novel will stick with me for a long time.

I requested and received an eARC of The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates via NetGalley. At ninety-six Isaac Dahl heeds his sister’s advice to write his memoir, presenting his life in memorable flashes over the span of nearly a century. Each chapter tells the story of one day and moves the story along eight years, opening with an eight-year-old Isaac. Some of the days are set against the backdrop of historic events, while others are seemingly ordinary days until that are inevitably interrupted by some life-altering occurrence.

This book definitely has a nice, cozy quality that I found to be very appealing. I was invested from the first chapter, which serves as a wonderful introduction to Isaac Dahl and the people who color his existence while also creating a strong emotional impact. The structure of the novel allows the reader to experience the growth of these characters over time and is done in a way that is both natural and immensely enjoyable. The novel only has twelve chapters, but each feels like a neat little short story, making this the perfect book to enjoy in increments (if you can resist the temptation to keep reading!) Some chapters felt like watching a Hallmark movie — if Hallmark movies were queer and still had that 90’s/early 00’s production quality (a compliment! There was a time when Hallmark wasn’t a wholesome trash mill! I’m thinking like Sarah, Plain and Tall. Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.)

I developed such a fondness for Isaac as I was reading this novel, and I think that is what made this novel a success for me. The supporting cast of the novel come alive on the page and their individuality strengthens the story, adding layers and complexity that unfold in the background. Bo and Aggie felt so real to me, I really loved every time they were together on the page with Isaac. As the years pass, one memorable day at a time, the reader is taken on a ride through history as Isaac offers accounts of how events such as the Dust Bowl, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement have shaped his life or sense of self. Yates is able to weave these events into the story without it feeling contrived. This was a super heartwarming, if occasionally sad read that shines brightest when it is untangling the way the Dahl family relates to one other. There were several moments when I was moved to tears by the characters and their lives. My only complaint is that twelve days did not feel like enough; I could spend much more time with this protagonist and his wonderful family, but to ask for more would ruin the very special experience of Yates’ novel.

Similar to the way Forrest Gump spans decades of history, personal and world, so goes Isaac Dahl’s life.

While we get to see his perspective of a lot of historic events, his relationships are really what makes this book so special. At each moment his twin sister, Aggie and best friend Bo are right beside him. Until they aren’t.

If you love stories that lean heavily into the development of a character this is for you. You’ll absolutely feel like you’ve met new people and truly gotten to know them.

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me read an ARC of "The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl"! I really enjoyed this book, I thought it was a fun read with quite a fast pace, so I was able to get through it quickly as well. With other books that follow a character over their whole life it can be drawn out, but I did not find that I got bored at any time while reading. I absolutely loved all of the characters and their relationships so much, I felt like I was a part of their family. Also, as someone who loves historical fiction and learning about the 20th century, this book was super interesting as it takes you decade by decade. It also wasn't surface-level/basic historical events one might expect, which was nice. It was definitely a fresh perspective! Overall, I had a great time reading an would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys queer fiction, historical fiction, and the found-family trope.

This was a delightful read, easy to follow, interesting because you followed one character with great side characters. A good read if you want something lightly heavy with real raw snippets of emotion followed by joyful interludes

Highly recommend this one!! This is my first time reading one of their books but it won't be the last! This book sucks you in from the get-go and you will find yourself thinking about the characters long after you finish it. Do yourself a favor and get this book!!

Thank you to Bart Yates, NetGalley, and the publisher for this advanced copy. I really enjoyed this book. It has such a great concept - 12 days of a man's (very long, very strange) life, 8 years apart.
As much as I enjoyed the historical fiction and learning more about some historical time periods (I loved the chapter about the Dust Bowl), what really resonated with me was the platonic love story of the three characters. People who understand you and are such a big part of your life that they are part of your soul and who you are as a person. That's the biggest reason to recommend this book.

See more on my bookstagram account - @bookish_starry_skies

I was very charmed by the title and book description, in how 12 different days are explored over the course Isaac Dahl’s life, but I’m afraid I was left quite disappointed. The book does span 100 years and covers significant historical periods (Forrest Gump style, with Isaac as a freelance journalist, but with far less humor and charisma), but the 12 different days are actually just 12 different chapters. Each chapter does center around a particular day but largely focuses on what has happened between those days as well so the “days” are not so distinct. The novel started off strong, but towards the end I found myself just skimming the pages because I wasn’t so invested in Isaac’s life events anymore.

There is very little “insight, wisdom, and emotional depth” in this book. Events simply occur and Isaac describes them which, to be fair, may be a reflection on how he is a journalist and his duty is to observe and report. Even so, it all felt very superficial.

The historical aspects of the plot are common knowledge for most Western educated readers, so I’m afraid I didn’t learn anything new about these historical events either. The book seems to just use some high school level world history knowledge without much extensive research in these historical periods.

The main side characters of this book, Isaac’s twin sister Agnes and their friend Bo, are entertaining at times but ultimately fall flat. The random side characters that pop up from chapter to chapter sometimes are mentioned again, sometimes not. Oftentimes they’re just spoken about in terms of “she would have been so-and-so’s age if he was still alive” or “I wonder how he’s doing, I should reach out some time.” Even his supposed “transformative” romance with Danny was so boring and brief that I had forgotten about that character until I re-read the book description before writing this review.

Bart Yates’ writing style is good and narratively, it was an easy and quick read. I didn’t have any difficulty following along and it was easy to keep track of the characters. I did almost stopped reading in the middle of it because I was bored and detached, but Isaac’s first-person narration was pleasant enough for me to skim to finish.

Much gratitude to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this novel for review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First things first is that I really enjoyed reading this book, the writing style was interesting and created a really heartfelt story. Each chapter of the book is a different day in Isaac Dahl's life so you jump from different times and places with each chapter but learn more about his life and all of his encounters,

Overall it was a really enjoyable read and was a refreshing genre to what I have recently been reading. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a heartfelt story about family, friendships and love.

So I just finished reading The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl about ten minutes ago. I started it last night while I was in a movie theater waiting for the movie to start and I finished it today in a marathon three hour reading session. So, odds are, I really loved it. And I did.

The book follows the titular character from age 8 to age 96. Each chapter is a vignette from every decade of Isaac's life. Over the course of those chapters, Bart Yates reveals Issac and his family and his friends and the way the world changes. It's a masterful work, and I found myself intensely involved in the narrative threads.

While I was reading it, I kept thinking of other books that made me feel the same way. The Last Chairlift by John Irving, Friend Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, and Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez were the three that most resonated.

Isaac, Aggie, Bo, Elias, Ty, Karen, Jamie, Danny, Janet, and all the other characters in the book will continue to live with me. I see myself re-reading this book in the future.

Isaac's journey to finding love is realistic and relatable, considering the challenges faced by gay men of his generation. While he doesn't find traditional romantic love, he does experience intimate connections and a long-term partnership, albeit one that is long-distance and separate from his daily life. This reflects his independent nature, which is common among queer individuals who were denied acceptance for most of their lives. Despite this, Isaac's story is not one of sadness and longing, but rather a testament to the power of human connections, particularly in platonic relationships. This novel, reminiscent of John Irving's quirky family sagas, is a great choice for readers seeking gay representation in 20th-century historical fiction.

The life course of a gay man born at the end of World War I is the subject of Yates’s latest novel, and it’s an interesting study of how a queer fellow of the Greatest Generation might have navigated the many turbulent events of twentieth century America, as well as family, friendships, and love.

Yates tells his subject Isaac Dahl’s biography in a first person narrative of twelve shortish chapters. Each chapter is a day (or so) in Isaac’s life, and an eight year increment forward in his tale. Beginning in 1926, when Isaac is eight years old, we meet his family, who are immigrants from Sweden, living in a hardscrabble mining town in Colorado. Most significantly, we’re introduced to Isaac’s twin sister Aggie and his best friend Bo. Whereas Isaac is mild-mannered and sensitive, Aggie is loud and undisguised in her opinions. The two bicker constantly, as siblings often do, but the tight bond between them is readily apparent. Affable, easygoing Bo becomes the perfect complement to their opposing personalities, not just as a peacemaker, but as someone who appreciates each of them for who they are. The three form an unbreakable triangle that gets them through a series of tragedies. Even as their journeys diverge at times, they always come back to each other.

The ‘strangeness’ of Isaac’s life, alluded to in the title, has to do with him encountering more than his fair share of freak natural disasters. At eight years old, he and Aggie survive an avalanche that has them tumbling together down a mountain in a steel bathtub that ultimately serves as a shelter from the tsunami of snow and debris, while their parents are lost along with most of their Colorado town. They’re taken in by an uncle in Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl, where they, and Bo, who was also orphaned by the avalanche, endure the nation’s worst heat wave and drought in history, which produces an epically devastating dust storm. Later, Isaac, a young war correspondent, gets assigned to the USS Houston in the Pacific theater of World War II. The battleship takes heavy bombing from the Japanese, and Isaac’s life is narrowly spared when he disembarks before the ship’s final, fateful foray in the Timor Sea.

Thus, one of the main themes of the novel is surviving against the odds, and that motif takes on new dimensions when Isaac joins his teenage nephew Elias (Aggie and Bo’s son) to volunteer as a peace activist during the racist backlash to desegregation in the 1960s South, and later, as he lives through the decades of the AIDS crisis.

Yates’s chronicle of all these harrowing events begs the question: what determines who survives and who does not? Yet, it would be foolish to offer some simplistic answer, and the author skirts around that pitfall. He does seem to have something to say about how one rebounds from the cruelties of the world, whether random or guided by the baser instincts of human nature, and that harkens back to the sturdy triumvirate of Isaac, Aggie and Bo. They stick together through each other’s personal hardships and life’s inevitable losses of loved ones, and develop a certain hardiness to whatever gets thrown their way, including the physical discontents of aging. In some ways it’s a three-way marriage, with Isaac taking on equal responsibility in raising his nieces and nephews, and later great-nieces and nephews, and showing them the world as they come of age.

One wishes that Isaac could have found love all on his own, but Yates’s handling of that matter scans genuine based on the position for gay men of Isaac’s generation. He finds occasional intimacies and a longer term partnership that is long distance and never really integrates the two men’s lives. That’s his personal choice, however, which reflects a solidly independent mindset, which one might expect of queer people who were not afforded acceptance of their relationships for the majority of their lives. Isaac’s story isn’t one of loneliness and regret for what could have been, however. The power of human relationships comes through for him in platonic ways, which are no less meaningful and comforting.

Reminiscent of John Irving’s quirky family sagas, Yates’s novel is a great title for readers interested in gay representation in twentieth century historical fiction.

This title was reviewed for Out in Print.

This was… interesting. Or not…
The writing was very good. But it was very difficult for me to follow the story, but I always had a small hope that I would like it.

This book does justice to its name. It feels really LONG. In my opinion, it can be a bit boring at times. But it was not bad. The story is beautiful, really.

2.5 stars.

Soooo this book..... I was always a big fan of stories that spanned the life of the protagonist, interspersed with historical events. This book hit all the right spots in terms of this. The writing was amazing, and the characters created were vibrant and full of life.
12 days in the life of Isaac Dahl, 12 vignettes and windows to his thoughts and soul. Some of the days did not have a historical event to signify them they were just important moments for Isaac, and , in my opinion, this is what made the book even more personal and deep.
It had been a long time since I cried with a book. The pain and emotions all of the protagonists felt, was so real and it truly gripped me.
This was a beautifully written book. The themes it touched upon were heavy, however the humor and levity were present throughout, making all the bad situations somewhat easier for the reader to handle. The strong bond Isaac has with his childhood friend Bo and his sister Agnes, is the central part of the book and the love between all three functions as the core of the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book tells the story of Issac Dahl over the course of his life, where each chapter is one day of his life every eight years. Some years are years filled with disasters, tragedy, and major historical events. Other years are just small moments in his life. However, it is all centered around his family, mainly his twin Aggie and his best friend Bo.

I enjoyed this short read, but while I thought I would like the concept of the 8 year jumps, it just makes it hard to follow along. I think the point is that there are so many little stories of this man’s life that it doesn’t have to have a smooth flow, but it was hard to go from one chapter to the next. Overall I give this book a solid 3 stars.

“We might not have a home anymore, and God only knew how much time we had left together on the planet, but at least we could fire off childish insults at each other and share another laugh or two before our game was finally over.“- @bartyates1

Meet Issac Dahl… he’s 8, lives with his parents, twin sister Aggie and baby sister in a valley in Utah with his family and community of Swedish immigrants. His best friend’s name is Bo. That’s the first couple pages… hold on tight. In the next 12 chapters you’ll see the life of Isaac, Aggie, and Bo unfold. From the age of 8 to the age of 96 Issac lived one very full life of adventure- natural disasters, WWII bombings, the atom bomb test runs, civil rights protests, the rising of the Mary Rose, growing up, growing old, raising himself, raising his nieces and nephews, falling in love, staying in love, and all the while fighting to live each and every day because the excitement of what could happen the next day kept him coming back for more.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This is one of the best time-jump books I have ever read. Even though decade jumps happened with every chapter, Yates always addressed the question you had lingering just enough. He expertly wrote of these monumental US and world events through the eyes of this family balancing the characters emotion and experience and the impact of the event. As sad as I was to read that last page and say goodbye to these characters, I was overwhelmed with the gift of their lifetime of love and the imperfect perfection of their family dynamic. If you’re lucky enough to know love and friendship that runs this deep and this true- it was a life well lived.

This book is a gift- thank you @netgalley and @kensingtonbooks for this #advancedreaderscopy of #theverylongverystrangelifeofisaacdahl

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this book before publication.

I really enjoyed the characters and relationships throughout the story, I thought they were very realistic and relatable. My intrigue was pretty solid the entire time, although the pacing of some chapters pulled me out at times. Sometimes I didn’t quite understand what was going on (example: what was happening to Isaac in the ‘50’s), this was later explained but I felt it should’ve been told sooner.

Overall I enjoyed the book and I know a few people I would recommend it to.

I absolutely loved this book. I feel like I know the characters and just love how it tracked his life for a day every 8 years. I remember the Mary Rose being raised and went to see it a few times and I feel I’ve learned more about historical events in the story. I couldn’t put it down and loved the relationship between Isaac and his sister Aggie.
I’ll look out for this author again and hope there are most books to come!

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl reads a bit like a collection of short stories, detailing 12 days in Isaac’s life which spans nearly a century. He survived natural disasters and deals with personal and society prejudice being a gay man in a time this was deemed unacceptable and considered a criminal offence.

Some days are perhaps more interesting than others however, it’s still a good read. It’s perfect for lovers of historical fiction and character-driven reads.

this book was absolutely divine!!!! beautiful story of friendship and love. perfect book for a nice light heartened story.