Posts Tagged ‘Benjamin Whitmer’


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Top 10 Reads of 2011

December 21, 2011 by Elizabeth A. White  •
Top 10 Reads of 2011Though I initially earmarked only my Top 5 Reads of 2011, I ultimately decided I really needed to expand that to ten selections given the ridiculous amount of stellar books I was fortunate to discover this year.

To narrow things down somewhat, I arbitrarily decided to select my Top 10 only from full-length novels and not include any anthologies or collections. And I’ll tell you what, even with the herd already thinned picking only ten was still excruciating.

So many authors gave me hours of reading pleasure this year through their amazing abilities, and I am grateful to each and every one of them. For writing what turned out to be my favorite reads of 2011, I am especially grateful to Andrez Bergen, Vincent Holland-Keen, Grant Jerkins, Lynn Kostoff, Bill Loehfelm, Matthew McBride, Steve Mosby, Josh Stallings, Urban Waite, and Benjamin Whitmer. Thank you.

Presented in reverse order by date of review, my Top 10 Reads of 2011.

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Category: Book Reviews
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Pike by Benjamin Whitmer

February 24, 2011 by Elizabeth A. White  •
Pike by Benjamin Whitmer“I’m capable of anything I need to be capable of.” – Pike

Pike, the novel’s eponymous main character, is not a good person. Never was. Be it running drugs and people across the border, beating his wife, going down the rabbit hole of drug and alcohol addiction, or committing murder, Pike’s past is a bleak portrait of a squandered, meaningless life. And he knows it.

While he’s nowhere near at peace with the brutalities he committed as a younger man, with age he’s removed himself from that destructive and criminal lifestyle, finally reaching a point where he can tolerate himself. Mostly. At least he could, until one of the more shameful truths of his past is thrust upon him, quite literally, in the form of a twelve-year-old granddaughter, Wendy, he didn’t even know he had.

Of course that’s not really a surprise considering he hadn’t seen his own daughter in decades, not since his wife, finally fed up with the beatings, ushered him out of the house and their lives via the claw end of a hammer. Turns out his daughter ended up as a heroin addict, turning tricks to support her habit. When the result of her chasing one too many dragons is an overdose, Pike finds himself the only one left to take care of Wendy.

So this is where the book turns around, where Pike bonds with Wendy and is redeemed by doing right by his granddaughter in a way he failed to do with his own daughter, right? Not quite. (more…)

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Category: Book Reviews, Top 10 Reads of 2011