For those familiar with the podcast version, it's worth pointing out that this is basically the same story, albeit with some editing, changed details, and things left out. On those roads, Keisha encounters monsters and secrets, strangeness and violence. This is the novel version of the fiction podcast Alice Isn't Dead, which told the story of Keisha, who takes to the highway in a truck searching for her wife, Alice, who she believed was dead until she randomly showed up in the background of a TV news story. Often tempted to quit, I kept at it to the bitter end seeking some insights that may not have been obvious, but alas, the ending seemed just as contrived and overly melodramatic as the rest of the novel. It was hard to maintain interest in all the craziness and thus the book took far too long to finish. The settings are treated superficially because they come and go so rapidly. The narrative frequently wanders into philosophizing, mostly about overly simplistic ideas of good and evil. Even the love interest between Keisha and Alice is so unrealistic as to leave one cringing. Their motivations are dubious and thus hard to empathize with. The characters are poorly developed and cartoonish (i.e., superheroes and evil bad guys). The violence is gratuitous, reminding one of a bad action film. Although Fink seeks to create drama, suspense, and terror, most of it is contrived and too abrupt. It doesn’t travel an arc, but instead is a series of scenes that don’t seem well connected or to go anywhere. The plot is so strange and erratic it is almost impossible to follow.
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