Helpful Score: 5
Await Your Reply is a brilliant novel that awaits your reading enjoyment! Three equally captivating and seemingly disparate stories are woven together in a tale of suspense. Each involves someone on the road: Ryan, his severed hand, and his recently found father racing towards a hospital; Lucy leaving town with her high school teacher in a Maserati; Miles again searching for his disturbed identical twin at the edge of the world. Given Dan Chaon's technique—starting off with a dramatic image, then creating scenes and characters, working with no overarching concept—it is a testament to his storytelling abilities to pull off such an intricate plot. The stories unfold slowly; what seems to be the truth shifts ever so slightly with each installment. How did Ryan's hand come off? Why did George Orson take Lucy to a lighthouse-themed hotel on the edge of a dried Midwestern lake? Is Miles's brother a paranoid schizophrenic or a sociopath with far-reaching powers? These will all be answered in an entertaining story that explores the ethereal nature of human identity and sense of belonging.
Helpful Score: 5
Through this novel we follow three main characters in three distinct stories. One is a man in search of his missing twin brother, another is a girl who has runaway with her high school history teacher, and the last is a young man who discovers his life has been a lie and sets out to reinvent himself. The interesting part of this novel is trying to figure out how these stories are connected. The stories are not necessarily told in chronological order and as the reader works their way through the chapters they discover clues. While trying to unravel this mystery was fun, the stories themselves were not necessarily compelling. I also felt that the ending was wrapped up just a bit too neatly. Suddenly, in the last chapter we switch to the point of view of a character we haven't heard from before and everything is laid out for us. It's too bad because I felt that this was the most interesting character in the book and hearing from him more often might have made for a much more interesting story. Over all this was an enjoyable read which I would recommend, but there is definitely room for improvement in this author's writing.
Helpful Score: 4
Interesting concept. Liked the twists and turns. Kept me on the edge - trying to figure things out!
Helpful Score: 4
I realize most of the reviews were favorable for this novel and mine won't be popular but honestly I could not get past page 90. It was boring. I had to push myself to that page. I could not fully relate to the plot at all. I found the whole story after the first 'come on pages' just a lot of time wasted to get nowhere. I did want to find out what happened to the man with his hand being cut off but that was just so gruesome in description. The nutty brother was irritating and all in all I just could not finish it. I hope there are others that will fully enjoy this read. I just didn't want to waste any more time on getting nowhere.
Helpful Score: 3
A masterful magic act of sleight-of-hand narration. Indelible characters, white-knuckle suspense, family breakdowns, all written in a kind of hysterical hysteria. Who could ask for more?
