Take Me with You

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

[Leah]

Catherine Ryan Hyde is an author who sprung on my favourites list back in 2009 when I read her utterly captivating novel When I Found You. Since then I have avidly added her books to my collection – Second Hand Heart, Walk Me Home and, my particular favourite, Don’t Let Me Go while I also have Where We Belong and When You Were Older waiting to be read. She just writes the most amazing stories that warm your heart, and generally leave you in tears. Of all the authors I read who write about kids, she does it the best because I ALWAYS find myself wanting to take the kids in her novels home with me. I’ve had Take Me With You sitting on my Kindle for a little while, and I suppose it’s fear that’s taken me so long to read it – what if it wasn’t as good as her other books? What if I was disappointed? It’s an irrational fear, and I knew as soon as I started the novel that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Catherine never lets me down.

I love novels that start with a premise that’s mostly unimaginable – and August finds himself in the worst possible situation ever – his rig has broken down, and been towed to a local mechanic and to get it fixed, it will cost him all of the money he had saved to make it to Yellowstone, on his annual summer trip. But the mechanic Wes has an idea – if August takes his two kids, Seth and Henry, Wes won’t charge him for fixing up his motor home. You see, Wes is going to jail for ninety days and if August refuses to take Wes’s kids on the trip with him, they’ll end up in County, leaving August in the most unenviable position, ever. I literally loved the opening to the novel! Sure, August was put in a pretty difficult decision, but after I had observed Seth and Henry for a couple pages, and saw how they interacted with August, and with his dog, Woody, I knew there was no other answer but yes. And so starts the most amazing road trip novel I’ll probably ever read.

I really liked Henry’s description, some years on, saying that August was like Superman. Because he was. He was so unselfish when he agreed to take the kids with him on his trip, and getting to see them experience the trip of a lifetime, was just surreal and amazing. It warmed my heart, and Seth’s excitment and chattery ways contrasted massively with Henry being shy and quiet, and those two kids just took my heart and ran with it. It takes a special person to take on the responsibility of another kid, and it’s something of a trademark in Ryan Hyde’s novels, and it always just makes me happy for humanity, because there are people like August in the world, and kids like Seth and Henry who just need someone like August in their lives. As they traversed across America, visiting many state parks, I was completely taken in. I felt like I was sitting in the rig, with them, probably sat next to Henry, with Woody in between somewhere. I felt privileged to get a peek into their awesome adventure. I loved that August himself was flawed, a recovering alcoholic, who decided to do something about his drinking after his son died (not in any way connected to August’s alcoholism, but connected enough for August to see it as a wake-up call). I LOVED August. Seriously.

Catherine Ryan Hyde is one of the most impressive storytellers and I certainly feel her books are under-rated and she’s an author who should be read by the masses. Her books just flow – I literally sad down to read Take Me With You at 2.30pm and didn’t stop until my parents came home two hours later. I was simply captivated. By the spirit, by the humanity, but mostly by the characters. How a novel with only three main characters (four, if you include Woody the dog) can be so engaging and captivating speaks a lot about the writer of the book, and I just wished with all my heart for it never to end. I liked that the novel moved on from the trip, too, and we saw a bit into the future, and I liked the role reversal that occurs, I feel no one can move a book on time-wise like Catherine can and she does it with such ease, that it feels entirely natural. I adored Take Me With You so much, it just… words can’t really express my love for this book, my love for the characters, my love for Catherine Ryan Hyde’s writing. She’s simply amazing, and this book is her at her very peak, and long may it continue.