We read this book and came together for our monthly book discussion with me wondering very much where this session was going to go.
For a start I absolutely loved THIS IS HOW, and seeing as I seem to spend an awful lot of our bookclub meetings in the Grumpy Corner I was wondering how many of the others would have loved / hated it.
In short, about 50/50. With a few people rethinking their approach once those of us who had loved this book explained the why and where that the story really worked.
Aside from how much the story, the characterisation and the way that this man's life unfolded before my eyes worked for me, the thing that I particularly enjoyed about this book was the excellent book club discussion it triggered. We argued, thrashed out reactions, found commonality in points where the book suddenly because unputdownable, and the session went on way too late, and was extremely enlightening.
You have to love a book that can grab the attention of 15 or so adults, enough to make us sit around a table with way too many bottles of wine on it, on a sunny Sunday afternoon and talk and talk and talk ... about a book.
This is How
All actions have consequences. This is how life goes.
Patrick is a loner, an intelligent but disturbed young man struggling to find his place in the world. He ventures out on his own, and, as he begins to find happiness, he commits an act of violence that sends his life horribly and irreversibly out of control. But should a person's life be judged by a single bad act?
This is How is a compelling and macabre journey into the dark side of human existence and a powerful meditation on the nature of guilt and redemption.
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