Up So Down
by Briane Pagel
(5/5 stars)
I remember when I read "Breathing Lessons" by Anne Tyler what impressed
me was that while the story didn't have much of a PLOT--a couple is on
their way to a funeral--the author captured the normalcy of their lives
so brilliantly that I was never bored with it. That's something Briane
Pagel does so well in his previous book "The After" and in his latest
"Up So Down." While the book doesn't have much of a PLOT, the author
does such a great job to create real characters that it's still a great
read.
The story focuses on two siblings. Sarah is a nurse in
Madison, Wisconsin, whose fiance Peyton drowned before they could get
marry. Her brother Dylan, aka Bumpy, has recently moved to Las Vegas
where he starts a shop to sell photographs of the Vegas scenery while he
works on a pilot for a television series.
That's really all
there is to it. The rest of the book is more or less getting to know
these characters and their histories. The book is told in a seemingly
random fashion that jumps around over the course of a year or so to add
pieces to the great big jigsaw puzzle that is the story. Although at
the end it feels like there are still a couple of pieces missing to the
puzzle. Maybe that will get resolved in a sequel. I hope so.
That is all.
