The Long Way Home

This summer, I read the book, The Long Way Home, by Andrew Klavan—the second book in The Homelanders series. This whole series kicks off when, one day, Charlie West wakes up, very confused, in a torture chamber, yet manages to escape. Charlie later finds out that the people torturing him were terrorists, and for some reason want Charlie, but he doesn’t have a clue why. He also realizes that the last thing he remembers was a year ago, and can’t retain anything in between. During this year, Charlie was convicted of murder (though he can’t remember this, either, and is sure he would never kill anyone) so the cops are after him, too. With the good guys and the bad guys against Charlie, he has nowhere to go and is really all alone. This series is about Charlie—doing whatever he has to do—to stay safe from the terrorists and cops, to figure out what has been going on, to know why the terrorists wan him so badly and do something about them, and to prove his innocence. It’s pretty intense! The focus of this book, mainly, is Charlie going back to his hometown to see if there is any evidence there to help him piece together the murder and everything else. It’s sort of ironic, because the one thing Charlie doesn’t want to do is to get his old friends involved; and guess what Charlie manages to do…the exact opposite. They insist on helping him, and he figures he could use as much help as he can get, so he reluctantly accepts.

The plot itself is exciting, but Klavan’s writing style furthermore supports a great read. He has a unique way of getting across the story. He mindfully uses first person, since there is not much dialogue, and the reader can get a sense of what is going through Charlie’s head. It’s interesting how the use of flashbacks helps us to slowly piece together the back-story, which, in this book, is very important. I personally like the author’s ambiguity, because it makes me think and it is a good technique of keeping the reader involved. Although the mood in this book may be depressing, I really enjoyed it nonetheless. It is fast-paced, thrilling, suspenseful, adventurous, and engaging. One of my favorite parts is how Charlie keeps making really close calls, yet somehow narrowly escapes them, and keeps pushing on. To me, that is the message of this book—to never give up, no matter how arduous things get. Anyway, when I read this book, it kept me so caught up in it that I didn’t want to put it down! Admittedly, this book isn’t for everyone, but if it seems like your kind of book, then I highly recommend it. Look out for when the nest book in the series is out, it’s sure to be just as good as the first two!