The Great Alone

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Leni meets Mr. Walker's new wife, Atka. They all go to see Matthew. His face is still disfigured and he needs a wheelchair to get around, but at least he is conscious. His speech is imperfect because he needed to re-learn how to speak and read because of the brain damage. There are many great things about this book...It will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet-like coming of age story and domestic potboiler. She recreates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders...and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America. A tour de force." — Kirkus (starred review) Cora tells Leni to get away so that she won’t be arrested with Cora. But Leni refuses to leave her side. What do you think about her decision? How did that have lasting impact?

Leni takes MJ to Alaska. She tells the officer about the murder, who coaxes her to tell the full truth, implying that it'll be okay. After Leni admits to helping to get rid of the body, he arrests her. However, at the trail, Large Marge is there and Tom Walker has helped pull some strings to get the state to drop the charges. Do you think Leni was resigned to these changes at this point? What did you think about her character at the start of the story? Leni says goodbye to Matthew. The leave for Seattle, where Cora's parents are. They tell Cora's parents that Leni's pregnant. They remember how Cora ran off when she got pregnant and see this as a second chance to do things right, so they welcome them into their home. Egan, Elisabeth (January 29, 2021). "Kristin Hannah Reinvented Herself. She Thinks America Can Do the Same". The New York Times . Retrieved March 22, 2021. In 1974, the Allbright family— made up of Ernt, Cora, and Leni—move from Seattle to Kaneq, Alaska. Ernt, the family patriarch, is a Vietnam veteran who is mentally disturbed after returning from the war. He is gifted land in Alaska by Bo Harlan, a former friend whom he watched die after they were captured and tortured together. The Allbrights hope Alaska will be good for Ernt, who is disgruntled by the current state of the country. However, when the Allbrights arrive in Alaska, they discover they are woefully unprepared for survival there. They make friends with the Harlans—Bo’s relatives—and Marge Birdsall, their neighbor who also runs the local trading post and helps them get settled. Once they settle in, Leni begins attending school, where she meets Matthew Walker, the only person her age in Kaneq. The two become fast friends and Matthew invites Leni to a community party his father is throwing. That night, the Allbrights attend the party, and Ernt immediately clashes with Tom Walker, Matthew’s father. Tom is rich and Ernt finds him to be condescending. Although Ernt doesn’t make a scene, Leni and Matthew hear him talking about his dislike of Tom. Despite her father’s harsh words, Leni and Matthew remain close friends. However, they are forced apart after Matthew’s mother, Geneva, falls through ice and dies. After Geneva’s funeral, Matthew goes to live in Fairbanks, Alaska where he can live a normal life and see a therapist. Leni is sad to see her friend go, but the two continue to write letters to one another.I think people who like plot-heavy books about heavy topics will like The Great Alone. It’s an accessible and well-written, though not particularly literary. There’s also a touch of melodrama in there and especially towards the end, which may be a plus or minus for you, depending on your reading preferences. So they would try again in a new place, hoping geography would be the answer. They would go to Alaska in search of this new dream. Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was. Dad kept his arm around Mama’s waist and pulled her over to the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair, said, “Leni, come in here!”

They go to see Earl "Mad Earl" Harlan (Bo's father) and meet Bo's family. Earl is friendly, but also kind of belligerent and paranoid. Thelma, Bo's sister, offers to teach Cora to farm. Five out of every thousand people went missing in Alaska every year, were lost. That was a known fact. They fell down crevasses, lost their way on trails, drowned in a rising tide. Alaska. The Great Alone."Hopefully, these book club questions for The Great Alone will help to get the discussion going for your next book club meeting! Cora declines to press charges so Ernst goes home. Months later, Matthew still isn't better. He's moved into a care facility in anchorage. Leni declines to leave for college, since she is waiting for him. Leni finds out she's pregnant. Leni tells Ernt and he starts to hit her. Cora shoots him. A girl was like a kite; without her mother's strong, steady hold on the string, she might just flat away, be lost somewhere among the clouds." The physical descriptions throughout the novel are ethereal...you can touch and feel and see what the author paints for you. When Ernt tried to beat Leni when she said she was pregnant, something in Cora finally snapped and she then shot and killed Ernt. Why do you think it took that moment for her to do something?

I’m so glad you found your way here. The Nightingale is a book that really means a lot to me. To be completely honest with you, I did everything I could not to write it. But when research led me to the story of a nineteen-year-old Belgian woman who had created an escape route out of Nazi-occupied France, I was hooked. I realized that with all the World War II fiction and non-fiction I had read, I hadn't read this story, and I believed it deserved to be told.Looking for The Great Alonebook club questions for your next reading group meeting? Here are 18 thought-provoking discussion questions to get you guys going! As I read about this brave woman--and so many others like her, women who put their lives at risk to save Jewish children--I found myself consumed with a single overwhelming question, as relevant today as it was seventy years ago. When would I as, a wife and mother, risk my life and more importantly, my child’s life to save a stranger? That question is at the very heart of the The Nightingale. It is a question that haunts me still. I knew I’d read it sooner or later, since I’d heard so much about it, but it got pushed off for a while when I was reading The Snow Child (also about a family trying to make a life in Alaska). I’m always a little hesitant to jump into books with similar premises or similar settings. Hannah vividly evokes the natural beauty and danger of Alaska and paints a compelling portrait of a family in crisis and a community on the brink of change." — Booklist Leni’s parents have a volatile relationship, which only grows worse as the winter approaches. Leni is scared of her father, and she understands that her parents are trapped in a twisted marriage.

To top it off, the locals (while friendly and helpful) are gravely serious about the need for the family to toughen up and get used to the harsh reality of living there.One thing is for sure, Kristin Hannah, hands down, is a talented author who can weave a tale. I have read many of her previous novels and always found them to be beautiful and thought provoking. This one, however, rubbed me the wrong way. Her house sat in the middle of a cul-de-sac, on a yard less tended than the rest: a bark-brown rambler with empty flower boxes and clogged gutters and a garage door that didn’t close. Weeds grew in clumps from the decaying gray roof shingles. An empty flagpole pointed accusingly upward, a statement about her father’s hatred of where this country was headed. For a man whom Mama called a patriot, he sure hated his government.