What readers think of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, plus links to write your own review.

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, with very good character development. I enjoyed how the story was interspersed with pages from the book The Handbook for Lightning Strike survivors. The characters, while flawed, were very interesting and have stayed with me and in my thoughts even after I was done reading the novel. I highly recommend this book.

The title of this book gives no hint of its literary pleasures. Reminiscence of authors such as Anne Tyler and Connie May Fowler, the first time author, Michele Young-Stone, sweeps us away in an engrossing tale of 2 ordinary young people, bound by the randomness of lightning strikes. I was immediately drawn into the book and found its plot and ending most engrossing. It's wonderful plot twists were well thought out and satisfying. The characters, especially Becca and Buckley, were very well developed and personally engaging. I will be letting my book club know about this fine new book.

I loved this book!!! I was hooked within minutes and was totally engrossed with the two stories that ran parallel to each other regarding Rebecca and Buckley. Their characters were well defined as were the others that rounded out their stories. The author's craftsmanship was apparent throughout. With few words she was able to convey so much, she was never trite, and the story was never predictable. I hated to see this book end, but look forward to future works by this author.

The author had me drawn in from page 1. The characters were easy to get to know, the story line kept moving and you wanted to know more. The title doesn't do the book justice...I know if I had not received this ARC I would not have bought this book just because of the title. Found the blurbs between chapters interesting and in some cases very informative. Great book... get past the title.

Young-Stone uses spare prose to tell the stories of her characters, which seems appropriate for telling the lives of Becca and Buckley, who do not have much magnanimity in their lives. Unfortunately, I did not find them very likable in spite of my empathy for their suffering. At times (as adults), they seem to contribute to their own victimhood. But Becca and Buckley’s methods of artistic and emotional expression, along with a few twists of fate, are what ultimately bring them together. Buckley’s Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors contains sobering information and an underlying thread of pain that echoes his experiences. Becca’s expression takes the form of her many paintings of fish, for which she uses dead “models” purchased at the local market. The decision of these two off-kilter people to make their pain visible brings about their meeting, and ultimately leads to some necessary closure for both of them.

There were a lot of coincidences between the characters, places and times in this story that were almost too coincidental for belief. I chose to go with the flow of the story and not over-think the coincidences and ended up really liking the book. I liked the way the story was told with 'facts' about lightning / lightning strikes combined with various stages of the characters lives. The characters are all flawed in one way or another and there wasn't a whole lot of depth to some of them but you want to know what happens to them. Enjoyed the ending wrap-up.

Somehow it seems that this book was a lightning strike survivor. The characters live, die and survive only to face the wildness of nature, human and non. Compassion is not often seen, yet seems to arrive in the heart of strangers. There is a wildness in the text that makes one yearn for peace.

The two main characters really captured my imagination, they were well drawn and interesting. However the HandBook inserts got tiring after a while and the repetition of the lightning strikes did stretch my credulity; I wanted the author to have me work a bit more versus spelling everything out.