Book Review: How To Walk Away

Book Summary:

Margaret and her boyfriend become engaged on the very day tragedy strikes. She had a new dream job she was about to start and a handsome fiance she wanted very much to marry.

During a short airplane flight with her fiance Chip, a flight she does not want to take because she is so afraid of flying, the airplane crashes. Chip walks away without a scratch. But Margaret is badly burned and her legs are smashed.

Her estranged sister Kit shows up after being away for three years. Maggie has no idea why she left or why she didn’t respond to her calls and texts. Or why she’s back.

She is assigned to a physical therapist, Ian, who everyone thinks is too tough for her. He is abrupt and difficult and not at all friendly.

Meanwhile Chip is drinking, wallows in self-pity and has a hard time facing her. Not only that, he has a hard time looking at her. The woman he asked to marry him did not look like this, and he isn’t sure he can love this woman with all her burns and deformities.

Maggie herself wallows in self-pity for a time. She wants to give up. Everything she’d worked so hard for appears to have gone up in smoke.

But sometimes, as the author says, the last thing you want is the one thing you need. And sometimes love finds us in the least likely places.

My Review:

This book gets 5 stars from me, something I very rarely give when reviewing a book. Because it is a damned good book.

The author writes exquisite words that are poetic, meaningful, sorrowful and hilarious all at the same time. A hard feat for any writer.

But Katherine Center hit all the high marks. And then some. This is a book you will want to read.

About The Author:

Bestselling Author Katherine Center wrote her first novel in the sixth grade (fan fiction about Duran Duran) and got hooked.

At 22, she won a fellowship to the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program and moved home to Texas with plans to become Jane Austen ASAP.

Her stories are always about resilience and struggle and finding ways to savor life’s moments of grace. That’s why her characters joke around so much, even in the shadow of hardship.

And that’s why Katherine will never, ever, run the main character over with a bus in the final chapter. That’s a promise.

She lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas with her awesome husband, two sweet children, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.