Review: My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh

5 stars for My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh.

This book reads very much like a memoir with a good dose of mystery. On the surface, it reads like any other mystery novel to uncover a crime which has been committed, but as I read on, I realise there is actually much more to it, more literary than mystery.

The narrator shares his story reminiscing the pangs of growing up through the onset of his first crush. Through flashbacks, memories of times past with an anchor of before and after, confession of guilt and fantasies, the protagonist tells his difficult years as an adolescent struggling to understand love, responsibilities and what is expected of him.

Sometimes growing up is painful, but oftentimes, it is beautiful too. In this regard, the author does a remarkable job putting them across in print by the use of imagery to create lyrical emotions. I believe, this is one of the reasons that I manage to stop myself from the headlong dash through the book to unravel the mystery, to find out the perpetrator of this horrible crime. After all, it is not the destination but the journey that matters. To this end, I take my time reading and enjoy the story totally.

Indeed, My Sunshine Away is a journey worth travelling, with the destination a bonus upon reaching. I cannot praise it enough. A literary novel with a good dose of mystery where the end of the first chapter is as gratifying as the beginning of the last.



Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons; Reprint edition
Publication date: 5 Apr 2016

*** Favourite quote ***

...just how strange and complicated adults are. As a kid you assume you know them because you see them often, and because they care for you. But for every adult person you look up to in life there is trailing behind them an invisible chain gang of ghosts, all of which, as a child, you are generously spared from meeting.

~ My Sunshine Away
M. O. Walsh

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My Sunshine Away unfolds in a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom. But in the summer of 1989, when fifteen year old Lindy Simpson - free spirit, track star, and belle of the block - experiences a horrible crime late one evening near her home, it becomes apparent that this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia has a dark side, too.

*Blurb from author's website*

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