“You don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. Alaskan life might be incredibly hard, but it’s worth every drop of sweat. But here, for the very first time, Leni feels like she’s found a home. When a fellow soldier dies and leaves Ernt his homestead in Alaska, the Allbrights pack up their lives and head north. Cora loves Ernt anyway, and so does Leni, but the woman and the girl live on edge, afraid that the least little thing they do wrong might set him off. Being a prisoner of war in the Vietnam War changed Leni’s dad, and not for the better. But it’s a poisonous, all consuming, jealous love that spins further and further out of control as Leni grows up. Leni Allbright’s parents, Ernt and Cora, love each other. But that love doesn’t have a lot to overcome to remain strong. I’ve been blessed with an incredibly stable and selfless family, and we love each other fiercely. The potential fragility of familial love isn’t something I think of often. “Alaska isn’t about who you were when you headed this way. I was completely captivated by its deadly beauty and, while I have no desire to move there myself, I can understand why those that do reside there become so fiercely loyal to and defined by the land that is their home.
Rarely have I read a book with such a strong sense of place. And above all, it is a love letter to Alaska, the Great Alone. It’s a coming of age story unlike any I’ve read before.
It is a display of the tenacity of the human spirit, and how much one can overcome, especially for the sake of another. It is a study of all the various types of love listed above. The Great Alone is not at all a romance novel, though there is romance within its pages. “I think you stand by the people you love.” And lacing all of these loves together, we see the love that nature can foster within a human heart, even when said nature is just as brutal and dangerous as it is stunningly beautiful. We see the love that can grow within a community, and how family can form among completely unrelated people. We see romantic love so twisted that it becomes deadly to at least one party, and romantic love so strong and pure that it can conquer the worst adversities. We see the love of a child for their parent and a parent for their child, and how far each would go to protect the other. Hannah gives her readers a peak into not only Alaska, but into love in all its forms and scope and limitless variety. While there was indeed adventure in these pages, I found so much more than that. I came into The Great Alone expecting an adventure story.
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