THE PEOPLE WE KEEP by Allison Larkin begins with April Sawicki as a sixteen-year-old girl in Little River, New York. April was first abandoned by her mother, and now has essentially also been abandoned by her father. She finds herself spending much of her time alone in their run-down motorhome since he moved in with his girlfriend and her son. After a particularly bad fight with her father, April decides she has had enough. She steals a car and starts driving. She isn’t sure where she will go, just somewhere away from Little River and the memories that haunt her there.
April is a musician. She plays guitar and writes her own songs. However, since her father destroyed her guitar during their last encounter, she must find another way to earn a living. With only a small amount of money, and the stolen car, April lands in Ithaca and finds a job at a local coffee shop. There she finds friends and even love. Then her past threatens to catch up with her and she must leave it all behind. The story follows April as she journeys across the country with only her car and her guitar.
THE PEOPLE WE KEEP by Allison Larkin is emotionally raw and poignant. The reader gets a very intimate look into the main character as she struggles to survive. We get the opportunity to experience friendship, love, fear, and many other emotions through her eyes. The story rings with such truth and genuineness that it is hard to refrain from integrating oneself into it.
I found myself drawn to April's character. Even though she is at times deceitful, her heart seems to be in the right place and she strives to do the right thing. Despite her background, she rises above it and paves her own way. Perhaps her biggest flaw is her tendency to run away instead of facing her problems head-on. Things could have been much different for her if she had been honest and owned her decisions from the time she set out on her own. Then again, she wouldn’t have found the people she chose to keep.
I recommend THE PEOPLE WE KEEP by Allison Larkin to the adult reader who enjoys a good coming of age book that takes a very deep and intimate look into the life of the main character. Because of the profanity and the sex scenes (not overly graphic) in the book, I would only recommend this for the adult reader.
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 Margo’s 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.
This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.
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