Book: The People We Keep

Author: Allison Larkin

“We have people we get to keep, who won’t ever let us go. And that’s the most important part. That’s what’s true.”

The People We Keep ~ Allison Larkin

Blurb

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at a local diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

Driving without a chosen destination, she stops to rest in Ithaca. Her only plan is to survive, but as she looks for work, she finds a kindred sense of belonging at Cafe Decadence, the local coffee shop. Still, somehow, it doesn’t make sense to her that life could be this easy. The more she falls in love with her friends in Ithaca, the more she can’t shake the feeling that she’ll hurt them the way she’s been hurt. As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be.

Review

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin took me a bit to get into, but then had me hooked to see what would happen to April. This story is a truly emotional journey that has you contemplating the people in your life and their impact on you. I was a teary mess by the end of this book, which for me means the author did an amazing job of getting me invested in the characters.

I was not the only one who was an emotional mess at the end of this story. Everyone in my book club said they cried at the end.

This was the first book club read of 2022. To see our other book club reads click the links below:

“ ‘I think maybe everyone is scared to be alone,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe when you get down to it, that’s why everybody does everything. Maybe all we’re doing is trying to be less alone.’ “

The People We Keep ~ Allison Larkin