Review: Three big bears and one awesome Frankie
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 31, 2013
This author knows this setting, knows towns like this, people like this, she knows snow. How do I know? Especially about the snow? Because having grown up in northern Ohio and gone to grad school in upstate NY, I know snow, too. Now, I don’t necessarily know Minnesota snow, except that it’s its own brand of snow, but still, I know snow. Now that we’ve addressed this, let’s get on to the setting, town and people parts.The setting is mostly that of the cabin in which Marcus “temporarily” shares space with two fellow bears, Paul and Arthur, who are currently going through an “on” cycle of their off-again/on-again relationship, determined by whether one or the both of them are involved with others. *waves hand* That’s a whole different story, mind you. I’ll just say that the way these three are introduced is humorous and sweet and real and speaks to the rest of this book.The town, welp, we don’t get much of it but what we do get is important. From the diner, the care center and the apartment complex, and all of the characters we encounter, a full-bodied picture is painted for us in which to view the lives of these four men, Marcus and Frankie, especially.Ah, Frankie. I think he may be one of my favorite characters from whose point of view I’ve been told a story this year. He’s a bit guarded, definitely funny, sweet and he basically knows what he wants but is hesitant to go after it. Every bit of his personality makes sense and isn’t really betrayed by any of the actions he’s made to do here. The same really goes for all of them. They’re all integral to this story. It wouldn’t work if one was missing or hadn’t been there at all. More importantly, it wouldn’t work with other characters – these are the four who need to be here to make the wintry magic happen. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish as a writer and I approve and appreciate.I didn’t necessarily have specific expectations going into this read, but whatever they may have been, they were exceeded. The white-knuckle driving Frankie finds himself doing that right off the bat, I could completely relate and it was a great way to tell us things about him. The nightmare of finding yourself spending the night in a stranger’s house and … you hear things. How hot, impatient, surreal and fantastic it can be the first time with someone. How the personalities of all four of these men were revealed in an every-day way while dealing with the not so every-day occurrence of a massive, blowing snow storm. I enjoyed them all. I think there is a lot of wonderful potential for future stories if Ms Cullinan ever decides to delve in and see what they have to tell her about their lives after this storm.Every now and then the dialogue got a bit wordy or a little too perfect in order to move things along, especially between the three bears themselves. I think part of this was an attempt to help the reader see that they really had known each other for a long time and it would, of course, have influence over their actions towards and words for each other. The focus truly was Marcus and Frankie and deservedly so. This is when the story was always at its strongest. There is a lot more to their story that could be told: where and how did they end up living? What happened with the care center? With their families? With work? Their relationship? It’s fun when it’s easy to see how much more could be told.This is definitely a comfort food re-read for me, with guaranteed smiles, heat and the urge to just want to hug a big ole bear. Four strong stars, y’all.