Book Review – The Line That Held Us

The Line That Held Us is about an accidental murder in the Appalachian mountains that leads to a tangled web of lies, threats and crimes, but comes back to just how far you’re willing to go for a loved one.

The Line that Held Us

I really went out on a limb with my August Book of the Month selection. Crime Fiction is probably in my bottom two genres of choice, but I decided to push myself… even when two of the other available books from BOTM were already on my to-read list (I couldn’t decide between the two, so I went with neither. That adds up somehow, right?).

Book 29:
The Line That Held Us
by David Joy

Genre:
Appalachian Noir, Crime Fiction

Published:
August 2018

Synopsis According to Mandi:
Without spoilers, The Line That Held Us is about an accidental murder in the Appalachian mountains that leads to a tangled web of lies, threats and crimes, but comes back to just how far you’re willing to go for a loved one.

Favorite Quote(s):

“Sometimes proximity was all that a person needed and that simple act of being close carried no need for sound.” 

-David Joy

“The world is awash with miracles, he thought. How marvelous to simply bear witness.” 

-David Joy

Awards (based upon my brief research):
None yet.

Pages:
256

My Overall Rating:
3.5 – I read this book in 2.5 days. I couldn’t put it down. On one hand, it was a truly engaging story. On the other, I took the “rip it off like a bandage” approach to avoid the risk of nightmares for weeks because crime fiction… yikes. The plot was very well thought out. It was deeper than I anticipated. However, there were detailed scenes I wish I did not read the details of (and felt they were unnecessarily added) and I felt the conclusion lacked closure to some respect.

If I were a regular crime fiction reader, I might have enjoyed this book more, but as a one-off, it was a lot to handle.