3 out of 4 stars
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Searching For Paradise is T.L Hughes debut novel, however the level of sophistication in his writing was a very pleasant surprise. Classified as Other Fiction, this book is a coming of age story which follows three friends in their late twenties as they leave one chapter of their lives behind them to embark on another.
Lucas, Declan and Mike had finished university and moved to the bright lights of California to seek their fortune in the film and music industry in the early eighties. After several years of blue collar jobs, struggling financially and not coming any closer to realising their dreams, they became jaded with the whole Hollywood scene and made the spontaneous decision to move to London. This is where the book begins as they leave Huntington Beach and start off on an epic road trip across the country to reach Mike’s hometown where they will catch their onward flight to a new adventure.
Crashing on the floors and sofas of their various friends and family on the way, we see insights into each of the characters as past incidents, both funny and sad, get brought to light. Running through it all is the carefree happiness of life on the road, the great open spaces of America, and all with the soundtrack of the music from the seventies and eighties.
This is not a fast paced, action packed novel. It is however, a smooth running, feel good tale of friends being young, free and searching for some meaning in day to day life. Reading this was like having a long cool drink of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.
Although this was a work of fiction, it reads very much like an autobiography. Written in first person from Mike’s perspective, it’s so full of details, anecdotes and incidents you can’t help but wonder how much is based on fact. This is further influenced by how realistically the characters are portrayed. Lucas and Declan are just your average young adults trying to find their way, like anyone you would pass on the street, and they are so much more believable because of this.
The creative imagery found throughout the story was lovely to read, at some times the whole story felt like a poem. One of my favourite sentences was “life is like a giant quilt made up of all different patches, squares from different places, people and music, all pieced together.”
One thing I found a little frustrating is that some things were repeated several times, which did make the story drag a little. Also the paragraphs were only marked by an indent at the start of the sentence which made it a bit hard to read at first, although this could be the fault of my device.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. As someone who races through books, it made a nice change of pace to read this one. There are times here to just ponder life and to find joy in the small things around us. Sometimes it takes a road trip or a change of scenery to re-evaluate and to put things into perspective. I would recommend this book to a broad general audience as it’s easy to read, there’s no violence or sexual content and it is a lovely book contemplating life, nature and friends.
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Searching For Paradise
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