family drama
63-year old PJ reads in the newspaper that his first love is now a widow. He also finds out that he has a young grand-niece and grand-nephew, that they have been orphaned, they need a parental guardian, and he is their only living relative. He’s also recently found out that his ex-wife and his best friend are getting married. And he’s trying to stop drinking. So he decides to take the kids on a cross-country road trip to find his old girlfriend and ask her to spend the rest of her life with him. They are joined by his prickly, unemployed, 20-something year old daughter and a special cat who recently showed up. What could go wrong?
This was a crazy story! I really enjoyed the humor. I laughed out loud a couple times! Annie Hartnett even gave voices to the cat and some inanimate objects, which I loved! But this story deals with truly heavy topics: grief from losing a child/parent/sibling, alcoholism, loneliness, depression, and death (by suicide, murder, accidents, and natural causes…lots of death). The heavy serving of humor made the story usually feel more hopeful than heavy. But this novel won’t be for everyone.
The book title, The Road to Tender Hearts, is based on the fact that PJ’s first love lives in a senior community called Tender Hearts and they’re on a road trip to that destination. But PJ himself has an extremely tender heart. He’s had three heart attacks and can’t handle bad/sad news very well. He’s been through a lot with his own daughters and has been in need of mental health resources and support for a very long time.
The audiobook narrator, Mark Bramhall, did a great job voice acting. My one complaint is that his saliva was heard frequently. Other than that, he was well-cast as PJ and did a good job with all the characters and accents. I’ll give him a B+.
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