Ryan's Reviews > Hold

** spoiler alert ** That was a bit weird.

Spoilers for Hold.

Hold is a book that very much wants to be many things, but it all jumbles out in a bit of a confused manner. This is the story of Luke, who recently lost his disabled sister to a lifelong illness. She showed the doctors up, lasted far longer than expected, and his backstory with her is shown in retrospectives that are very nice. Luke’s an artist and would sketch his sister as beyond her limitations, would sketch himself as a stick figure so she could identify him in a way that was very connective for her. One day he got distracted on a street and lost control of her wheelchair and that haunted him. It was a grounded, moving relationship told following her passing. Very nice.

Luke is bullied by Wes and his gang, the brother of his best friend Dee, has a crush on his other friend Marcos, and during the earliest pages of the book discovers he has an ability to stop time. As one does.

I’m organizing my thoughts as I type this review. I was frequently confused by the writing style. It wasn’t always clear what was happening, or why, and I frequently had to re-read paragraphs a couple of times to grasp a point. Perhaps I was a distracted reader, but I usually don’t have that issue. Why could Luke stop time? I don’t mean cosmically why. There’s great dialogue in here about superhero origin stories and heroes versus villains and all of that was great stuff. It wasn’t clear to me how he implemented the process. Originally it was strong emotion. Then it seemed like he could stop time by repeating words in his head. Perhaps it was always strong emotions? I feel like he could do it more at will later. That bit wasn’t clear to me and it felt glossed over, or was shown and not told, but I didn’t pull enough details from the narrative.

So early in the book, Eddie tries to intervene and stop Wes and his gang from bullying Luke, and later that night Luke breaks into what turns out to be Eddie’s house on a dare while time is stopped, finds Eddie in his bedroom with a gun and a whole lot of money, and Eddie seems to be able to move within the hold. Eddie later comes to Luke and says the drama teacher is letting Luke get credit helping Eddie prepare for his class project, and we spent much of the book with Luke helping, or failing to help, Eddie get his acting on.

Luke eventually finds out Eddie is lying about everything, hooks up with Marcos, reconciles with Eddie, goes to his game (I thought this took place in the United States but I believe their football team has a goalie, and I’m less sports oriented than Luke, so letting that go...) and stops time, somehow distracting Eddie on the field, whose mother is badly insulted by Wes, who attacks him and causes a nearly fatal head injury, which was somehow Luke’s fault because they have this mind meld connection within the hold because they’re soulmates or something. Dee tells the police about the gun, the police almost shoot Eddie on the roof of a theater (acting while black) and Luke saves him with the Hold, Dee straightens everything out after hearing what Wes said, Marcos is asexual so no hard feelings, and all is good.

I had a hard time finding out what type of book this wanted to be. There’s a lot about death and loss, mental illness, race relations and sexual identity, but there’s this superhero comic book plot line about the literal ability to freeze time which feels like it should be more than an aside in this story.

If the connection between Luke and Eddie is why Eddie can unfreeze in the Hold, why was it present in Eddie’s bedroom before they “truly” met.

And why did Eddie have more cash than Luke has ever seen in his bedroom?

I love the friendship between Luke and his friends. I love the description at the end, that Eddie will have theater friends and Luke will have his friends and they’ll meet in diners eating a plate of fries and meld their worlds. I love the school theater descriptions, specifically Dee as Madam Stage Manager.

I didn’t love page after page of play practice not knowing if Eddie was an alien about to teach Luke about the hold, or if this was the story of a grieving brother, or a coming of age story. I again feel it tried to be everything and wasted some time in the middle and buried its lead. I think I felt disoriented reading this, if truth be told, and that can be wonderful or not, and it feels like more the second.

I’m truly interested in those with opposing views.