Back Roads

Rating:
Summary: Why did Oprah pick this for her book club?
Review: That was the question I kept asking myself while reading this book. The author Tawni O'Dell in my opinion is not very talented when it comes to writing, especially when it's the first novel you've ever written. There is too many curse words, F this and F that, too many sexual words, degrading at times and just plain disgusting. The character Harley has one gross imagination and not to mention a crappy life, he has a slutty and trashy sister, the second one where I really did not figure out what was going on with her until the end and the youngest sister Jody who was the only decent character in this entire novel. Harley has a sexual relationship with a married woman, and all this guy ever thinks about is what is going on inside his pants. This guy is nothing but a decrepid pervert who thinks about nothing else but womanly parts and what he wants to do to them and what he wants done to him himself. This novel was dirty and I don't recommend it to anyone; I certainly will not be reading any more from this author again. Oh yeah, another thing, what was up with the annoying capitalized words all the time, ridiculous. Oprah, what were you thinking?

Rating:
Summary: A very good pick for Oprah's Book Club.
Review: "Back Roads" was both humorous and sad, but very well-written. The story takes place in the backwoods of western Pennsylvania. It centers around the life of a college-aged guy named Harley Altmyer, whose left caring for his three unruly younger sisters, after their mom is convicted of killing their dad. While Harley is working two jobs to support his poor family, he yearns for the typical life of a college-aged guy. This includes having a good sex life. Harley has been having trouble finding a girl that he would like to sleep with. Then Callie Mercer, who lives up the road, enters the picture. She is considerably older than Harley, and is married with two young children, who play with Harley's little sister, Jody. However, both Harley and Callie become interested in one another, and start having a secret affair. In the meantime, secrets regarding the Altmyer family and the events surrounding Mr. Altmyer's death start surfacing, which Harley must come to terms with. "Back Roads" is fairly quick to get through, and the reader will not be left bored.

Rating:
Summary: Of the best page-turner books i've ever read...
Review: Back roads,written by o'dell is not just a novel,but a true picture of the life which a great many teenagers have to face.

With a mom in jail and a murdered dad and three other sisters,Harley has to play the role of both the bread-winner and the house-keeper beside having to face the mental needs of his sisters and himself.
As in the book,we read; " That was when I realised being the bread-winner took the joy out of a lot of things".

The book is sad,but enjoyable,a new work,not like the other happy ending novels written for the pleasure of the reader,its the truth.
The novel narrates the story of sexually abused kids with a sacrifying mother ,yet a fantasy sex life of a 19 year old boy who finds himself obsseded with the woman-the mother of two kids with a husband-living in the neighbourhood.
O'dell smartly points to some other issues on the sides;From the disabled young man working in the shop-which totally reminds me of SAM in "I'm Sam"- to the harsh police officers of the state.
Onthewhole,I obviously advise this book to those who seek real-life non-fiction stories.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, disturbing, but a wonderfully sad coming-of-age story
Review: Back Roads examines the effects of physical and sexual abuse
on children. It is an excellent book for that reason...I hope
it makes readers think twice before ever hitting a child.

Back Roads starts out describing the life of the abandoned
Altmyer kids, and how they cope on their own without their
parents. Harley tries hard to do the right thing by his 3
sisters by working hard, paying property taxes on the old house
and keeping the girls from foster care.

While sympathetic, Harley's obsessive thoughts of sex, violence,
and degradation make him sometimes hard to like. At first glance
his sisters are mostly sympathetic characters--tough, swearing
Amber (whom Harley thinks dislikes him), mysterious Misty, and
little Jody, the only character who remains innocent throughout
the whole book.

You want the characters to survive and maybe escape their lousy
exsistence, but towards the end of the novel you realize that's
not going to happen--too much earlier tragedy leads to inescapable doom, which surprised me.

The harsh, continuous use of the F-word is almost symbolic and
kind of prophetic for what happens at the end. The bittersweet
scene where Amber agrees to not run away from home if Harley
will agree to start hitting her made me want to cry. This is
the legacy that abuse has passed down to the Altmyer children.

The book reminded me of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, except
with a male character. O'Dell writes convincingly as a young
male in the same way Wally Lamb handles the female point-of-view
in She's Come Undone.

There is indeed a little humor sprinkled throughout, with the
wry descriptions of people and their lives as seen through
Harley's eyes. Harley is often hard to like, and more often
than not he is either lusting, crying, vomiting, or just freaking
out. But again, the legacy of abuse is at fault here--people
who call the book depressing should understand that terrible
things like that happen to innocent children every day. Misty
and probably Amber are scarred for life, but you hope at the
end that poor Jody might have a shot at a normal life with
Uncle Mike and Jan.

The book is very well-written and sympathetic, but also sad
and appalling.

Bravo to the author for her honesty, I would definitely recommend
Back Roads.

Rating:
Summary: "Back Roads" Book Jacket Misleading
Review: This book intrigued me when I first bought it because of the subject matter: a young man trying to deal with raising his three younger sisters in the absence of their parents. But as I read further, I found the content of the book to degenerate and become highly disturbing, especially the incest theme that threads through the novel. When the father is posthumously found not guilty of incest with his daughter, the reader discovers (and has seen all along) that Harley and Amber have an incestuous attraction or need, and this turned my stomach. I was particularly repulsed to discover Harley and Amber having sex after Harley discovers Callie's dead body--and to top it off, he knows his sister is the culprit. Is this at all realistic? I am interested to know whether sibling incest is a characteristic of parental abuse--I highly doubt it. I found the story outrageous and overly dysfunctional. This book sickens rather than intrigues.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping and disturbing
Review: I could not put this book down. I read it in two days. Deeply disturbing and very sad. Harley, a 19 year old boy is left to care for his three sisters after his mother is sent to prison for shooting her husband (so we are led to believe). It is strange to see that Harley ends up taking the blame for shooting Callie just like his mother ends up taking the blame for shooting her husband. Tawni (the author) is very good at describing her characters and making you feel as though you know them personally. I would definitely recommend this book to fellow readers but would caution them around the contents.

Rating:
Summary: Protect the innocent from abuse.
Review: It seems I have stumbled onto another trashy novel about the South. So like the V C Andrews' mass assortment about incest and the TO LIVE AND DIE IN DIXIE, this too makes us in the South look bad beyond belief.

These poor children endure so much, but the murder by the older boy and his sordid affair with the offbeat mother of two just down the road are a little much. Another murder takes place there in the filthy outdoors by one of the sisters and the mother goes to prison for a crime she does not do but didn't try to avoid.

I gave this book away just to get it out of my presence, as I consider it nasty and disturbing. What bothers me is that this kind of literature(?) gets published in the first place.

There certainly were back roads, but the premise of the story is about the interwoven lives of two families who live there. It must have occurred before there were social services to look after homeless children.

Rating:
Summary: Troubling, distubing even, and unforgetable
Review: Some praise this book while others trash it, but with all such things the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the murky middle much like the characters, sad tragic and damaged souls, tormented by a history they had no control over and future that seems even more uncontrolable than their past, but these are no saints. Outside of the littlest girl there seems not a socially acceptable quality amoung them and yet the reader can't quite bring themselves to do what society has done with them - close the book and hope they go away.

It took me a while, but at length I found the author was taking reader on a journey. This isn't entertainment as much as expereince and as such it become a fascinating view into the world of abuse and ideas so evil one can hardly comprehend. Perhaps the main character's fear voiced when confronting his 16 year old sister about the abusive guy she is considering living with are most telling, "Would you stay home if I hit you?" I shared his horror that she is going to say, yes.

The language is foul at times, but revealing of the characters background. Some may be appalled at the young man's poor choices, awful problem solving techniques and his constant desire for sexual intimacy in the most animal terms, but is this all that shocking in a character whose entire existence has lacked the most important of all human elements - love?

Rating:
Summary: A Hard Look at Life
Review: Wow! This book was not at all what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be about Harley, who was going through hard times trying to raise his other 3 sisters after their mother shot and killed their father. It was about a lot more than that.

This book is kind of a look into the lives of children who have suffered abuses at the hands of their parents- emotional, physical or sexual. This families life was completely screwed up! I'm quite used to graphic writing, but even I was surprised at some of the violent thoughts in this book. Which is why I have a hard time with everyone calling Harley a hero- I don't see that.

It's really a sad story. You keep wishing for things to get better for this little family, but it just seems to get worse and worse. I do agree with some of the other readers- this book is a bit flawed. I just feel like the resolution and ending was not quite worth it. And the character development wasn't up to par. I think it could have been improved. Or maybe it was that I was just looking for a happy ending. Be warned, this book is often hard to read, it's a sobering subject. But maybe it's a story that needed to be told.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the read, but flawed
Review: I was excited to get this book as a gift, especially when I saw that it was from Oprah's book club. However, after reading it, I've concluded it doesn't really deserve such recognition. While the story is sad and moving-- a family of four children try to cope with the murder of their father by their mother-- and the characters are for the most part believable, the author goes astray.
First, there are far too many tangents in the book. Right when something pivotal has happened, the narrator will go into some recollection about his father beating him or his sister yelling at him. I wanted to know about the present, not always the past. The flashbacks were at times awkward and unnecessary.
Second, the narrator, Harley, isn't exactly likeable. The back of the book describes him as "heartbreaking, hilarious, and lovable," and I would say he only matches the first description. He's mildly funny, at times, but in a sick and twisted way, and definitely not lovable. Did I feel bad for him? Sure. Did I love him? No, not at all. He has far too many daydreams about bashing people's brains in to love him.
Lastly, there were too many loose ends at the end of the novel. The story starts and ends with Harley talking about his friend Skip, and it seems at first that Skip will be a major character, but he's really not. We never even meet him. Not only that, but I was left wondering what the hell Skip even meant to him. Why did the author even include him in the story? The narrator never really articulates what effect Skip has had on his life. And some of the other characters, like Harley, are hardly likeable. The only character I could really sympathize with was Jody, his six year old sister, who seems to be the only truly innocent character in the book.
That being said, it was still worth the read. The story itself is sad and tragic, and the writing is very truthful.