Lori's Reviews > That's All I Know

What a quietly deceptive story. Oh my gosh, I loved it.

In it, Little Lea, a nineteen year old girl, is sitting on a bench overlooking the forest when a man comes rushing up looking for his dog. Lea asks the man to have a seat, and warns him against chasing the dog into the woods. Wait, she says. The forest eats people up and refuses to spit them back out. But dogs... dogs will return to you. She begs him to be patient and asks him to share a joint while she tells him a story to help pass the time.

And the entire novella is just that... it's the story Lea tells the man about her family and their small town, and the dangers of the forest, and the end of their world, a world she claims has been slowly dying over the past year.

I know what you might be thinking. C'mon, a whole book that's just one long monologue? One hundred and sixty pages of a young girl smoking some weed on a bench with a strange dude. How is that a five star read? Ok, yes, it's that... but it's also so much more. It's about loving when you're not loved back. It's about loving the unlovable. It's about refusing to give up but knowing when to give in. And it's about making the tough decisions and doing the things you know no one else will do, knowing you'll come out forever changed in the end.

You guys, I fell straight in. Fully and willingly, bewitchingly, hopelessly, and just you wait.

Just. You. Wait.