Runaway Train
Lee Matthew Goldberg
Publication date: April 29th 2021
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
They told me I was an out-of-control train about to crash…
Everything changed when the police officer knocked on the door to tell me – a 16-year-old – that my older sister Kristen had died of a brain aneurysm. Cue the start of my parents neglecting me and my whole life spiraling out of control.
I decided now was the perfect time to skip town. It’s the early 90’s, Kurt Cobain runs the grunge music scene and I just experienced some serious trauma. What’s a girl supposed to do? I didn’t want to end up like Kristen, so I grabbed my bucket list, turned up my mixtape of the greatest 90’s hits and fled L.A.. The goal was to end up at Kurt Cobain’s house in Seattle, but I never could have guessed what would happen along the way.
At turns heartbreaking, inspiring, and laugh out loud funny, Runaway Train is a wild journey of a bygone era and a portrait of a one-of-a-kind teenage girl trying to find herself again the only way she knows how.
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My Review:
About a year ago police show up at Nico’s door to tell her that her sixteen-year-old sister Kristen had died of a brain aneurysm while out jogging. Nico has been grieving for her sister for a whole year now. Her life keeps spiraling out of control.
Her parents are surfing in their own way. Her parents no longer pay her much attention. It is as if their only daughter died that day. It's like they have forgotten that they have another daughter or I imagine that is how Nico feels.
One day Nico decides that she has had all she can take. She has to get out of town and leave it all behind her before she explodes. Nico makes a bucket list, then takes Kristen’s car and hits the road.
Nico wants to live her life and do the things she imagined her sister wanted to do. Nico is also afraid that if she doesn’t tackle that list now she may never get that chance as she is afraid that she will die the same way her sister did with a brain aneurysm and before her life even begins.
Runaway Train is about a young girl who is suffering from loss and hurt and is probably very upset that her sister just up and left her like that. A piece of her heart is missing, broken off, a piece that she will never get back. I can just imagine Nico feels like the life is being squeezed out of her until she can no longer breath and she is being swallowed up in a big black hole and the light above is slowly dying with only a sliver of light left.
Runaway Train is a very emotional read that will pull you in from the very beginning and have you in tears on several occasions. Runaway Train will pull at your heartstrings until it rips it to pieces. It will have you turning the pages so fast that you will feel as if you are on a Runaway Train not being able to lay it down until that last page is turned.
Nico was probably trying to outrun her pain and loss. She problem thought if she could run fast enough and far enough it would disappear. I think at first Nico thought if she could hide or mask her pain and push it way deep down inside her with this road trip then it would all go away as if it had never happened. But I think all the people she meets on this road trip helped her in different ways to heal. They all played a part in Nico’s healing even if they didn’t know it.
Runaway Train is one book I definitely recommend to anyone looking for a good book to read. So one-click your copy of Runaway Train today!
Author Bio:
Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of the novels THE ANCESTOR, THE MENTOR, THE DESIRE CARD and SLOW DOWN. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the Prix du Polar. His first YA series RUNAWAY TRAIN is forthcoming in 2021 along with a sci-fi novel ORANGE CITY. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitReactor, Monkeybicycle, Fiction Writers Review, Cagibi, Necessary Fiction, the anthology Dirty Boulevard, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press and others. He is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Fringe, dedicated to publishing fiction that’s outside-of-the-box. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City. Follow him at LeeMatthewGoldberg.com
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1 comments:
That sounds like one emotional roller coaster!! Great review!
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