"All of life’s decisions can be made with your head, your heart, or your gut. First, you listen to your head. If you still don’t know, you listen to your heart. Sometimes, if you think that your heart is biased, you go with your gut. There are no wrong answers. There are only winding paths to life’s grand journey. Your journey is your own.”
OUR JOURNEY IS OUR OWN is a heartbreaking, heartwarming, and well-written quick read that follows the coming-of-age journeys of Kat and her brother Bailey as they navigate growing up amidst the bruising backdrop of an abusive household. While Bailey's off at college, Kat copes with the help of her best friend, Hunter. Theirs is a special friendship that runs deep, sometimes tinged with chemistry and always embedded with compassion. And this, sadly but poignantly, makes a tragic turn of events even sadder.
Kat shares a lot of history (and patterns) with Bailey, and their relationship is beautifully rendered with all its flaws and camaraderie. The theme of abuse, especially toward women--and of the vulnerability and helplessness that enshrouds such families within a society that can't or won't help enough--resonates powerfully throughout the narrative in the interwoven storylines, as does the theme of deep and faithful friendships (/unfulfilled romances). The high school and college settings were a nostalgic blast to the past. The flashbacks to Kat and Bailey's childhood were also insightful--and honestly, I wanted more of that: more backstory on the mom and dad--how they met, how their own childhoods were, why they are the way they are as a dysfunctional couple. It could help explain (though not justify) her doormat demeanor and his violent tendencies, providing insight into a red-flag situation that, from the outside, continues for years inexplicably with an open-ended conclusion.
The prose is simple and elegant and just evocative enough, the pace is brisk and tempered with little passages from Kat's journal that underline the turmoil within her and try to help the reader transition between scenes even when there aren't chapter breaks. The dialogue is very well written throughout, with a natural cadence and believable style, peppered with fantastic banter and some real nuggets of wisdom.
"They were just kids, after all. They were just children trying to figure out their place in the world. It was hard to figure it all out, though, when they were living for other people. Kat lived for her mother. Her mother lived for her father. Bailey lived for Lina. Hunter had lived for his parents. Flynn lived for everyone else. But maybe that was the point. To live only for yourself could lead to a very lonely life. Perhaps the point to living, and in some cases dying, was to leave an impact on others."
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Unwell Hydration from Alex Cooper
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021
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