Remember Me Like This (Johnston) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
There’s real humanity in Johnston’s writing, and it’s heartening to spend time with these folks as they relearn how to be a family. Rendered in these compassionate, candid chapters, theirs is a struggle that speaks to those of us who have endured far less.
Washington Post


[Bret Anthony] Johnston’s scenes are exquisite, the internal and external worlds kept in taut balance.... [A] fully immersive novel in which the language is luminous and the delivery almost flawless.
Boston Globe


I know the novel you’re looking for. It’s the thriller that also has interesting sentences. It’s the one with the driving plot but fully realized characters as well, the one that flows like it was plotted by Dennis Lehane but feels like it was written by Jonathan Franzen.... It’s a surprisingly rare breed.... Fortunately, there’s Bret Anthony Johnston’s Remember Me Like This.... The book is riveting, with the elements of suspense neatly folded into an elegant series of interlocking arcs.... There is nowhere you want to stop.
Esquire


[A] strong debut.... The novel offers a melodrama that tries to sympathetically portray the devastating effects of loss on a family.... Johnston has a talent for drawing well-rounded characters, although verbal excess weighs down the novel’s pace. In the end, this is a convincing and uplifting portrait of a family in crisis
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) An admirable achievement.... The story starts where other stories might end.... [Readers] will find their expectations continually defied as characters refuse to follow a formulaic plot trajectory.... This is ultimately an uplifting reading experience owing to the believable love and warmth of the family.
Library Journal


[Johnston’s] first novel is so spellbinding, so moving, that one’s only complaint is that we had to wait ten years to read it.... Johnston is a master at creating honest portraits of family members that could easily be your neighbor. Make no mistake about it: Bret Anthony Johnston is a writer to watch.
BookPage