Review: Lessons In Holding On
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 14, 2014
I've looked at some of the other reviews and many of them give good information about the book, and of course there's the blurb, so I'm going going to just add a couple of thoughts and leave it at that.The stories in the collection are horrendous and beautiful. They all revolve around the end of the world we know, yet are hopeful. Sending a group of explorers into the unknown as a sort of human vanguard. They must go into hibernation and therefore leave everyone on Earth behind. They leave, knowing that family members, parents, spouses, even their children, will be long in their graves by the time they wake up. Heartbreaking and hopeful.There is always the notion of a higher purpose and a refusal to let go. The main characters in these stories are thinkers, dwellers, people seeking answers. They find it impossible to leave the past behind but refuse to let it stand in the way of the world as it is, or will be. A woman, alone in the brutal new apocalyptic world meets a man who ends up protecting their most treasured belonging, a notebook filled with memories of life as it was.Jason Gurley has a gift for dialogue. There are no large flowery musings here, just people honestly saying what they think. I have yet to read anything by him that wasn't thought provoking, and even stories with dark subject matter were, in their way hopeful and poignant. At this point he has become one of a small handful of writers that I would buy work from without hesitation. He is that good.