Review: 4 1/2 Stars--Not Simple at All...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 24, 2014
I read Simple Man by Lydia Michaels a few days ago and am still feeling the emotional pull of this novel. Shane suffered the loss of his parents when he was only seventeen and then took on the role of guardian to his kid sister. When she grows up and they butt heads too many times, Shane tells her to take care of her own messes, and she disappears from his life. Many months later, he is left with no sister...only her baby son. He is scared to death and totally unprepared for this responsibility, but he clings to this tiny boy, the only family that he has left in this world.It's a wonderful feeling when a character's highs and lows become your own. I felt each ounce of shame, guilt, and regret that Shane experiences (when he uses food stamps for the first time, for example--so movingly described), but I also felt the first tiny kindling of hope that eventually burns into a flame of renewal. When he steps up and claims that baby nephew, he is given a family again and a sense of purpose. He falls in love with that baby, and it extends not only to Kate, the social worker assigned to his case, but also to himself. If Kate sees him as worthy, if baby Logan sees him as worthy, then how can he not see the possibility of becoming that man, too? It was not an overnight process, and that made the story even more real for me. Two steps up and one step back, but man, I was cheering him on toward the love that he deserved.Simple Man is a story of one man who turns out not to be so simple after all in his devotion and care of those he loves.