The Walk by Richard Paul Evans 3.5 stars, rounded up to be generous

[Karin]

3.5 stars rounded up

At this point, I'm trying to be generous in 2025, but this was no more than 3.5 stars for me. I started this on audio while exercising without reading the blurb again, so had forgotten that Alan loses everything early on in the book, before he sets to walk as far from where he lives in Washington State as possible. Note that this walk goes over several books. There were a number of things about this book I liked but one thing that brought this down was that (view spoiler)[Alan was a complete idiot to continue to have his wife in charge of paying the bills when she was clearly irresponsible with money. In fact, it's hard to see what he saw in her since once she's an adult we don't see any redeeming features anymore. She's a spendthrift who doesn't seem to contribute anything to the marriage. I did like the fact that she was a childhood friend who didn't marry Alan after he was a success. He could have lost everything by forgetting to pay the bills while engrossed in his wife's injury and care plus the betrayal by his business partner. (hide spoiler)]

I'm currently reading the second book now, so it's difficult to say more about this one without adding the viewpoint of what happens next.