Book Summary and Reviews of Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt by Ben Reeves

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labmom55

I struggled to become engaged
It’s funny how book themes seem to come in waves. I’ve read several books lately on forced sterilization in the south. Now, here’s the second book in two months with Death as the main character. Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt takes a serious approach. Death, aka Travis, is a young man living in a small town. He visits both those who are dying and don’t want to be and those who aren’t but wish they would. He comes as a witness, as a companion. He’s powerless to change what is about to happen. As you would expect, he’s detached from life. That is, until he meets Dalia, a young midwife and her 8 year old daughter, Layla.

The book flows in a sort of run on style, one scene to the next. The perspective changes from first person to second person to third person, often on the same page. While I could acknowledge the beautiful writing, I just struggled to engage with the story. Travis was just sort of a blah personality. I felt for Dalia and Layla, but they weren’t as big a part of the story as I would have wanted. And all the others, those poor souls that Travis shepherds through to the other side. That just got old. Instead of making an impact on me, I found myself zoning out. Until the end, which totally caught me off guard. But it wasn’t enough to make up for the rest of the book. It’s an obvious message - don’t take life for granted. If you’re going to tackle this subject matter, have something new to say.

I’m an outlier but this one was a miss for me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for an advance copy of this book.