How can we love loathsome characters? Well, I did just that with Samuel Hawley! His relationship with his daughter Loo is very special, not a normal relationship, but you feel the love.This is in part a thriller, and really keeps you reading!I would recommend this!

Wow!  This book definitely took me on one heck of a scary and thrilling roller coaster ride!THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY by HANNAH TINTI is an absolutely riveting and captivating tale of a father’s love for his daughter.  This book drew me in right from the very first chapter and throughout all of the 12 bullet wounds that Samuel Hawley endured to the very last heartfelt chapter. Loved it!HANNAH TINTI delivers a touching, moving, heart-wrenching, impressive, and very descriptive read here w...

3.5 I have had a hard time processing this novel, what to think, how to explain my rating and reactions to this book. As a thriller it would rate a solid four, the plot is different, loved the format and how we learn Hawley's back story through the bullet holes on his body. These chapters alternating with he and Loo, his daughter, now living in a small Massachusetts town, the home of Loo's mothers birth.This is where it gets a little tricky for me, because this father and daughter relationship,

4.5 Stars No one seems to love or understand me And all the hard luck stories they keep handing me Where somebody shines the light I'll be coming on home tonight Bye, bye Blackbird Bye, Bye Blackbird -- Written by Ray Henderson (composer) and Mort Dixon (lyricist) ”When Loo was twelve years old her father taught her how to shoot a gun. He had a case full of them in his room, others hidden in boxes around the house. Loo had seen them at night, when he took the guns apart and cleaned them at t...

Samuel Hawley. Fisherman. Father. Criminal. Hawley and his daughter, Loo, don't stay in one place for very long. They are both irregular weaves, it's difficult for them to fit in, hard to blend. There is always the shadow of Hawley's past misdeeds looming just behind him. A shrine to his wife always travels with them. In a way, remembering too well is like being buried alive. I read "The Good Thief" by this author a couple of years ago and was struck by how different it was. She has done it agai...

Why is it always so much easier to talk about things you don't like? I literally do not have the words to explain why I loved this books so much. It just felt so perfect. I love Loo and Sam and Lily and I'm so heartbroken that the book is over and I want to curl up and cry. I felt so taken in by the book I could barely breathe until I finished reading it. I loved the plot line and the structure and the characters and the writing. I wish I was more eloquent so I could say something more meaningfu...

book club is going on NOW! https://discussions.rifflebooks.com/t...what a kick-ass heartbreaker of a book. this would be really good friends with She Rides Shotgun - both are grit-lit coming-of-age novels featuring the relationship between a criminal father and the lessons such a man is able to impart to his young daughter to prepare her for the world and the struggles to come: how to hotwire a car, shoot a gun, or deal emphatically with bullies. this one is less-grit, more-heart than s.r.s., bu...

This novel is a bittersweet examination of a father and daughter relationship and a coming of age story. Samuel Hawley and Loo have spent most of their time living in places on a temporary basis. This has ensured that they have the routine down pat when it comes to leaving, taking only the bare minimum, but always with them are the items that remind the two of them of Lily, Loo's mother, and which form a dedicated shrine in the bathroom. The constant moving means Loo has no friends but this life...

Reading this book prompted me to think about how I judge the books that I read. Certainly by the writing, the story, the structure, the themes, that sometimes indescribable thing that draws me in, and of course, the characters. There are probably other things that influence my views - the mood I'm in, maybe the book I've just read. I thought about this because Sam Hawley is not the kind of character that I usually care about. He has led a life of crime and is far from the perfect parent but yet

What a clever novel - the story and the execution are excellent! I was spellbound.This is a father-daughter saga, spanning approximately 25 years. Their stories are told in alternating chapters, but (thankfully) it is all told in third person so you don't have to deal with multiple narrators. Samuel Hawley is the father, a ne'er do well who has spent most of his life committing crimes or running from them. In the course of his criminal career, he has been shot twelve times. His history is reveal...

Beautiful and bittersweet.There's something about the kind of relationships, like the one in this book, that really speaks to my heart. A gruff, gun-toting, bullet-scarred man, and a spirited teenage girl - an unlikely pair, and yet when the relationship is so full of love and mutual respect, as it is here between Loo and Samuel Hawley, there is nothing so strong. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley alternates between the present and past. In the former, Samuel Hawley teaches Loo how to survive (s...

One thing about love, be it romantic, parental, filial, even platonic, is that sometimes you can't help whom you love, and you find yourself loving someone in spite of their faults (if not even because of them). Do we turn our backs on those we love just because they may be imperfect, despite all they may have given us? These ideas and questions are at the core of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley , Hannah Tinti's exquisite new novel. For as long she can remember, it's just been the two of th...

i love going into a book expecting nothing but coming out with everything.the father/daughter bond is something that is so under-utilised in fiction and it makes me so happy to read about a book about a young girl coming of age under the guidance of her father, a man of mystery and dark past, but loving him for it all the same.the story is centred around loo, her father, and his twelve scars, which are a reminder of the life he had before her. ‘the marks on her fathers body had always been th...

"And then suddenly it was over. The lunge threw him off balance and he flipped backward, so that for a brief shining moment he was upside down, his feet still peddling the air, and then the full weight of Samuel Hayley crashed down on the tip of the greasy pole, snapping the end of the mast in two, shooting splinters across the harbor, bringing the entire town to their feet, and sending a jumble of wood and grease and man exploding into the sea – – followed by a tiny red flag, flattering slowly

"The past is like a shadow, always trying to catch up.” 3.5 Stars. A beautifully-written story about an unconventional father-daughter relationship. For as long as Loo can remember, it's always been just her and her father Samuel Hawley; her mother Lily died when Loo was a baby. Hawley sets up a shrine to Lily at every single place they stop. They've never stayed in one place for long. By the time Loo is 12, she's gone to seven schools in seven states. When it's time for her to enter eighth g

3 stars. I thought this was an averagely good book. I think that my expectations were set a little too high which left me feeling underwhelmed upon finishing (I hate when I do that to myself!). It started off a lot stronger than it finished and I found the story really dragged at times. Once I hit the ¾ mark, I was looking forward to finishing the book as I found it was becoming somewhat repetitive and I was losing interest.I really liked the main characters Hawley and his daughter, Loo. The sto...

I always find it interesting how quickly a book can grab you. This one managed it within the first few pages. Such a beautifully crafted book. “She carried the rough and tumble look of children being raised by men.” This book is primarily about a father and daughter and the love they have for each other. But it's also about the father's past, a lifetime of bad mistakes. He's not a very good criminal, but he's a very good survivor. He's not easy to identify with, but he's easy to understand and e...

This book is about a man who was shot twelve times during his life as a criminal. There is no way I should have cared about Samuel Hawley or how he obtained those bullet wounds at all; but I did.Samuel’s wife Lily brought changes into his life, including a baby girl. However, Lily died and the way this happens and how it affected Samuel and their daughter becomes one of the mysteries of the story. Samuel created a shrine for Lily wherever he travelled – was it grief? Remorse? Guilt? Again, I sho...

I am hoping that as I write this review that Hannah Tinti is sitting up in some skyscraper sitting across from Ethan and Joel Coen who want to make her book into a full length feature film. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is one of those books that knocked me off my feet and left me begging to be part of Hawley's group. Hawley and his daughter, Louise( Loo) remind me of the brotherly duo in The Sisters Brothers. Ironically, the setting takes place in contemporary America, but as I was readin

It always makes for an interesting read when the author chooses to make the bad guy into the hero and we find ourselves rooting for him despite the fact that he is a multiple murderer! Samuel Hawley is such a man and although he is many things in this story he is chiefly Loo's father and protector and this is what makes him appealing.Not that he is a good father in the normal way of things. He bonds with baby Loo by giving her whisky on his finger tip, as a young child he teaches her how to fire...