Maybe A Miracle

Maybe A Miracle by Brian Strause
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 1/?/06
Rating: C+ (4/10 OK, but don’t recommend)

Strause’s debut novel starts out with a bang, piquing my interest from the very beginning. Unfortunately, the momentum begins to slip even before the halfway point. Ignoring my inner voice of reason, I continued to read, curious to see how Strause would wrap things up. I loved the narrative voice of Monroe, the young teenage protagonist who saves the life of his younger sister in a drowning accident. Yet, in spite of this very likeable character, the inconsistent tempo and repetitious details of the novel were disappointing, leading to a low rating.

Favorite Passage:

“It’s like life’s this slippery slope and we’re never really in control and sometimes it seems like running into a tree is the worse thing that could ever happen, when really it’s what stops us from going over the cliff.”