Christopher J. Yates - GRIST MILL ROAD

Plot (via Goodreads):

The year is 1982, the setting an Edenic hamlet some 90 miles north of New York City. There, among the craggy rock cliffs and glacial ponds of timeworn mountains, three friends—Patrick, Matthew and Hannah— are bound together by a single, terrible, and seemingly senseless crime. Twenty six years later, in New York City, living lives their younger selves could never have predicted, the three meet again--with even more devastating results.


Review:

GRIST MILL ROAD starts out with a bang...well, multiple bangs to be exact. The first few lines of this novel are dark, menacing, and coldly calculated and it doesn't stop there. The menacing plot is not only a story that is bold, it's painful at times to read. This is definitely one of the darkest novels I've read in a long time and deals with a ton of social issues that were written very well and lets face it, Yates is someone who knows how to tell a story and it's definitely a story worth reading. While I did enjoy this one, there were a few things that could've been done differently in my opinion to make this novel a little more enjoyable. Nevertheless, even with slower pacing in the beginning, I found myself really enjoying the second half of the novel once I got a little more in depth with where this was going and how deeply routed these characters really were.

What I found enjoyable other than the plot was the three main characters. Were they likable? Not really. Were they believable? 100%. I did enjoy reading the differences in these characters from their adolescent lives into adulthood and how the twisted acts in 2008 brought them back to the devastating summer of 1982 and held their emotions and thoughts prisoner. I actually enjoyed the fact that the three main characters weren't that likable as it really proved to me as a reader that you can still care about their stories. While the pacing during the first 100-150 pages was a bit slower and kind of confusing to really get into, I was glad I stuck with it when I got to the meat of the story and even found some scenes in the present time to be almost dreamlike.

While I enjoyed the story, some scenes to me were kind of vague in the sense that I couldn't tell if something was imagined or if it had really happened. At times, I did find myself revisiting certain scenes feeling like some detail had been left out and really wanted to have more information. Other than that, the only thing I found rather unenjoyable was how the dialogue was set up. If you're not really careful, it's hard to differentiate between the characters thoughts and their words compared to what was said during a conversation.

This novel is completely different than what I thought it would be, but ultimately I did find this to be a rather unique and interesting reading experience. While I don't think it falls necessarily into the thriller and suspense genre, I would definitely consider this a dark literary novel with hints of violence and crime fiction. Definitely will be checking out more of Yates work and I'm glad I had the opportunity to venture into this world he created.

Special thanks to Picador for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 3.5/5