Adult / Novella / Realistic Fiction
I gave this book 5 of 5 stars!
“Only when
you’re a little lost can you start to find direction.”
In Rafael Blotta's We
Were Kings, Robert Bartholomew doesn’t know he’s lost; he is living his own
life as a writer in Guatemala, far from his South Philly upbringing and the family
and neighborhood ties he found a little too binding. Robert has nothing in common with those
people, especially his brother who has become a guitar god on the rock scene.
Good riddance, Robert tells himself. He
has happily moved beyond his days as Robbie from Gloucester City and has no
plans to look back -- that is until the arrival of the invitation to come home
for his father's fiftieth birthday party.
Robert begrudgingly finds himself on an airplane back home, then facing
his past which, alarmingly, is his present. Robbie soon realizes that families
are bonded by things that distance can't break: love, acceptance, and
understanding, and perhaps those aren't such bad ties after all. Rafael Blotta
tells a poignant story about family and friendship and the perspective on them
that comes only with maturity.
Blotta has a
real gift for depicting reality, and his writing flows in a natural, not showy
way. His characters are fully fleshed-out and easily imagined as people readers
have known or met. I appreciated the adjusted phonetic spellings to help the
readers "hear" the strange, exclusive Gloucester City accent
described as, "the only accent of its kind in the entire world, a strange
mix of South Jersey Irish-American descendents [sic] combined with a South
Philly Italian intonation, all wrapped together with the slur and mindset of
the dockworkers that had first made their homes here over a hundred years ago.”
Blotta uses beautiful, descriptive language and also some colorful figurative
language that perfectly illustrate his characters. For example, in describing
his great-grandmother, he says, “She had a penchant for sprinkling the truth
with flavorful bullshit.” This short description speaks volumes of the
character, and really illustrates the overall impression of We Were Kings:
Rafael Blotta’s story speaks volumes in just a few pages.
Fortunately,
the only improvements needed are easily made with another pass by the editor. There are a dozen or so errors, which is too many
for a story of this length. They are not game stoppers, but corrections would
take the story to the next level of professionalism.
This book
was reviewed for Readers' Favorite, who provided me a free eBook in exchange
for my honest review -- the only kind I give.
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