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Lonesome Lies Before Us: A Novel
Lonesome Lies Before Us: A Novel | Don Lee
9 posts | 2 read | 4 to read
A contemporary ballad of heartbreak, failure, and unquenchable longing, this novel presents Don Lee at his best. Yadin Park is a talented alt-country musician whose career has floundereddoomed first by his homely looks and lack of stage presence and then by a progressive hearing disorder. His girlfriend, Jeanette Matsuda, might have been a professional photographer but for a devastating heartbreak in her teens. Now Yadin works for Jeanettes fathers carpet-laying company in California while Jeanette cleans rooms at a local resort. When Yadins former lover and musical partner, the celebrated Mallory Wicks, comes back into his life, all their most private hopes and desires are exposed, their secret fantasies about love and success put to the test. Drawn to the music of indie singer-songwriters like Will Johnson, who helped shape the lyrics in this book, Don Lee has written a novel that unforgettably captures Americas deepest yearnings. Beautifully sad and laced with dark humor, Lonesome Lies Before Us is a profound, heartfelt romance, a soulful and memorable song.
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Suet624
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Mehso-so

I received an autographed copy as a giveaway from LitHub. I agree with @Misanthropester that this book never rose to what it could have been. Lee piqued my interest with talk of using Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry as lyrics but then dropped it. He also had great descriptions of what it‘s like to clean hotel rooms and in the future I will be leaving generous tips for those folks doing that thankless job.

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Misanthropester
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Mehso-so

Like the characters, this story never rises to what it could be & squanders what brilliance it has in favor of merely occupying space. A grand banality

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Misanthropester
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90% of the novel written to get to this point, the heart & theme of the work, & it doesn't get the treatment it deserves

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Misanthropester
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The strongest parts of this novel are the fee insider moments on being a musician, the pragmatic over the romantic

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Misanthropester
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Also, Lee is using a lot of low-hanging fruit humor (and that's being generous bc it's not even approaching dad joke lvls) that's just boring

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Misanthropester
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A third of the way through this novel & there's way too much 'telling' & very little 'showing'

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Liberty
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Beautiful book mail. ❤️

133 likes3 stack adds
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Misanthropester
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Unexpected #bookmail

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CherylDeFranceschi
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Lunch date with an ARC.