I loved this story. Started it yesterday evening and just finished it. The descriptions and prose were beautiful. I counted six awesome descriptions about hair!!!! Hahahaha I didn't know anything about the book other than the little blurb on Amazon and thought it was written by a man. That says a lot about her ability to write in a male characters voice. I should have known, going back to the hair descriptions! Is that sexist? I loved this image of this very flawed man who loves his daughter so much.

Kindle book

I really liked this book, I had not read this author that I remember, but she tells a good yarn.

I loved this. Erik Schroder / Kennedy is so human, so fallible. He makes so many mistakes, the worst of which is absconding with his daughter, but I still cared so much for him; kept wanting until the very end for it to come right for him.

Amity Gaige's seeming to address the reader,(the novel is a letter from Schroder to his wife) works really well, and can be a difficult thing to carry off.

And I really liked the ending. He's writing the letter in prison to his ex-wife about their relationship and what happened during the road trip he took with his daughter, not just as an explanation but for see whether she will ask the courts to be lenient. But of course the letter is sent before they go to court...

And the scene of Schroder's final encounter with his father is particularly moving.

Will Collyer read it very well, but my criticism of the audio version is that the acknowledgements came too soon after the book ended, so I wasn't even sure it had ended!

Compelling story, but such an unlikable and unsympathetic main character. Well written except for the abundance of totally unnecessary footnotes.

The main character in this book was not likeable. While I enjoyed reading it the book and wanted to know what happens next, the fact that I couldn't get myself to like the protagonist was not fun for me. His love for his daughter is the only redeeming quality that he has but even that doesn't fully redeem him as he does awful things in the name of his love for his daughter. Thought-provoking, but didn't leave me feeling good at the end.

I didn't always buy the narrator's voice but that doesn't change that this is an engaging book, with a lot of insight into disastrous decisions that may seem normal at the time. The author finds it hard to hide that she is perceptive in ways that the narrator is not or could not be, which actually is endearing in its own way. Well worth reading even if one has some reservations.

When I first began reading Schroder, it was clear that the main character, Erik, had wanted to and had erased his whole backstory and created a new life for himself under the name Erik Kennedy. Though his story was intriguing and beautifully written, someone who kidnapped their daughter would seem to be unlikeable. Still, I found myself not disliking him for those things because of sympathy. Schroder was moving and made for a page-turner, and I definitely found myself wondering why I hadn’t read any of Amity Gaige’s novels before. Gaige had written in a male perspective and still carried the identity of Erik to the point that I had forgotten a woman had written those words. There were confessions after confessions and heartbreak through a messy and bitter divorce between Erik and his estranged wife Laura, but underneath was the father of Meadow, which truly showed Erik’s heartfelt side. I thoroughly loved this brilliantly and beautifully written novel, which would make perfect for any book club; there would be great conversation and debate over the dynamics of Schroder.
-Rebecca Jayne (with thanks to Lovereading.co.uk for letting me review this before publication!)

3.5 stars, really

wow this book was disturbing. and it was beautiful at the same time. every time i put the book down, i couldn't stop thinking about it. i wanted to just read it nonstop so that i could be done with it. but in a good way.

i know that sounds weird.

let me try again. this story was so...real. the way that this father describes his life, his love, his daughter. his life and love for his daughter. it's so true, so real. there are moments that i was reading this and i couldn't feel more connected to the narrator.

then there were moments where i was so appalled by him. and upset, horrified, disgusted. i got angry at myself for feeling empathetic a few moments before.

it's a truly amazing and disturbing read.