Faithful by Alice Hoffman

Standalone
272 p.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: Nov. 1, 16
Source: From publisher and NetGalley for review

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. 

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night. 

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

First... Happy Halloween! Not a part of the review, but wanted everyone to have a fun and safe time. :)

My thoughts:

I wasn't sure if this was going to have an element of magical realism in it or not and in the beginning of the book I was certain it would be more magical. It, in fact, is not and is more about Shelby and how one moment in time can devastate a person and how we harm ourselves more than what anyone else can do to you. As dark as this is, it is also the story to the road back to oneself and figuring out how to value oneself. It isn't a sappy story at all, but one where a woman finds pieces of her self and slowly puts them together.

All characters in the story have a purpose. Even the mysterious ones who you aren't at first sure aren't magical. However, the magic fades but that is a good thing as real life takes over and Shelby find that it isn't others who save her but she who saves herself even though others had a big part to play in it. I think the secondary characters were mostly there so she wouldn't slip further into the dark but to hold her head up until she could do it herself.

If you are an animal lover and love stories where animals get saved, than this book is for you. One of the things that helps Shelby is taking care of a motley crew of mutts she has saved throughout the tale. In saving them she is saving herself and eventually finds a calling though it all.

My biggest problem with the book would be the romance at the end. I think there is so much more to tell there and we get the barest mentions about this relationship. I would have loved that part to be much longer and it really needed to be longer. There were aspects of the boyfriend which mirrored her own and I think it would have enhanced the story further.

Now I will give this book 4 stars but toyed with the idea of knocking off a star for every time this book made me cry. I hate to cry and I had 3 times toward the end where I was crying and needing a tissue. This both makes me love it and hate the book for it. Okay, so I loved the compassion and love through those scenes so I'll be good and leave the rest of the stars up there for the book. *sigh* I do recommend it to those that love a journey story where a character hits close to bottom but finds away to her own redemption. It is also a story filled with rescue animals and humans as well as a bit of art around the edges. I did enjoy my time in the book despite the tissues I needed to get through it.