From the Bookshelf of Diversity in All Forms!…

The Great Alone

Kristin Hannah

Start date: October 1, 2018

Finish date: October 31, 2018

Discussion: Monthly Bonus Reads

Why we're reading this: October Bonus Read- Domestic Violence Awareness Month

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
[close] October Bonus Read- Domestic Violence Awareness Month

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 73 topics — 889 comments total

Monthly Bonus Reads

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (February 2023)
By Mariah Roze · 2 posts · 18 views

last updated May 17, 2023 10:35AM

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide (March 2023)
By Mariah Roze · 2 posts · 11 views

last updated Mar 06, 2023 08:42AM

showing 1 of 1 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Feb 10, 2018 JanB rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley, traveling-sister-read

4.5 stars

The author is a skillful storyteller, and this was fantastic. I loved every minute of it, and despite it being a fairly long novel my attention never wavered.

It’s the early 70’s and we follow the Albright family to Alaska. Ernt, the dad, is a Vietnam vet, a former POW who suffers from the effects of PTSD. He drinks. He can’t hold a job. He has a hair-trigger temper. The move to AK promises to be a fresh start for him, his wife Cora, and daughter Leni.

Alaska is a primitive place, “The 4.5 stars

The author is a skillful storyteller, and this was fantastic. I loved every minute of it, and despite it being a fairly long novel my attention never wavered.

It’s the early 70’s and we follow the Albright family to Alaska. Ernt, the dad, is a Vietnam vet, a former POW who suffers from the effects of PTSD. He drinks. He can’t hold a job. He has a hair-trigger temper. The move to AK promises to be a fresh start for him, his wife Cora, and daughter Leni.

Alaska is a primitive place, “The Great Alone”, and the family is woefully unprepared. They arrive to find their cabin lacking modern conveniences, and they lack the skills and knowledge to prepare for the long winter season, which is rapidly approaching.

The author does a great job capturing the brutal conditions. It’s an unforgiving place, where even a simple mistake can cost you your life. Alaska is a character in the story and I particularly enjoyed this aspect of the novel. The beauty, isolation, and grandeur is captured perfectly, but family relationships and dynamics are the main focus of this novel.

Luckily for the Albrights, they get help and friendship from a cast of colorful characters that inhabit the town: Large Marge, Mad Earl, Mr. Walker, and others. Everyone there used to be something or someone else: a cop, a Pan Am captain, a university professor, a prosecutor… "Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now." "Any life that could be imagined could be lived up here." There are varying reasons why someone would choose to live off the grid in an area that has its own set of rules.

The brutal winter isn’t the only darkness this family faces. A tragedy occurs which changes all of their lives. The last half of the book deals with the aftermath. The author doesn’t sugar coat any of it, and the issues this family and community faced would be challenging under the best of conditions. Not everyone within these pages is a sympathetic character, and more than once I would have liked to have reached through the pages to shake some sense into a couple of them. They may be frustrating but they are, sadly, probably accurately drawn. (I’m being deliberately vague so as to not post spoilers.)

This is a long book, covering decades, so there are necessary large jumps in time. There are tragedies, secrets, love, death, loss, joy…it’s a book with a lot of heart even if some things were a bit predictable and unrealistic, with too much drama thrown in at the end. It still didn’t stop me from loving the book.

The ultimate message is the truism often repeated: “no matter where you go, there you are”. You can’t escape yourself, and your demons will follow you wherever you go. Love isn’t always an easy path, whether it’s parental or romantic love, and life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect.

Trigger Warning: domestic abuse

I read this with the traveling sisters reading group and as always, they make the experience better. You can find the sisters blog at:
https://twogirlslostinacouleereading....

*Thank you to Netgalley, St Martin’s Press, and Kristin Hannah for providing me with a copy of the book for review. ...more

108 likes · Like · see review

Jun 17, 2018 Wendy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5000-books, jun-18

Kristin Hannah pulls me in and I become completely captivated with her story!
Set in the 70's, The Great Alone is a fascinating read about the struggle of a family in the vast desolation of untamed Alaska.
5 stars for me for Hannah's stunning visualization of Alaska and for the many emotions I experienced while listening to this novel. ...more

60 likes · Like · see review