I don't read much science fiction, as the genre just doesn't interest me and I don't want to waste my time slogging through books that I know I most likely won't enjoy. Having said that though, I AM open to occasionally trying out books of other genres with sci-fi themes worked into the story (as long as it's not hard-core sci-fi stuff) and there have been plenty of times where I actually had a good reading experience. This is one of the reasons why I decided to pick up Helen Fisher's debut novel Faye, Faraway – with its premise as a "heartfelt" story about family, relationships, love, and time travel, I thought it would be one of the "exceptions" that I would be able to appreciate. The summary describes this as an emotionally gripping, contemporary story about a woman named Faye who time travels back to the past to see her mother, who had died 30 years ago when Faye was just 8 years old. Faye becomes friends with her mother (who doesn't know who she is of course) and the more time she spends with her, the more Faye doesn't want to let her go, even though she knows she must do so in order to return to her beloved husband and 2 daughters. In the end, faced with an impossible scenario, Faye must choose between a second chance to make things right with her mother in the past or letting go and returning to her happy life with her family in the present. Based on this premise, I went into this one expecting to be moved and perhaps to even shed a tear or two – but my reaction ended up being the opposite. Instead of the expected emotional reaction, I ended up feeling super annoyed and frustrated, both with how the story played out, as well as with the characters.
The story is narrated from Faye's first-person perspective, which I feel like is one of the things that didn't work too well in this instance, as it seemed that Faye spent way too much time explaining and justifying (and re-explaining and re-justifying) practically every action she takes, especially as it pertains to her time travel. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I found most of her arguments irrational and nonsensical. I'm all for flawed characters in stories (as we are only humans after all and are bound to make mistakes and bad decisions), but I also need to see these characters grow in some way as the story progresses, rather than remain one-dimensional from beginning to end. With Faye, I felt like she didn't change throughout the story – her behavior was childish and immature from the start and it continued to be up until the very end. I also got annoyed by the fact that Faye would act overly unreasonable and stubborn throughout nearly the entire story – even when others tried to reason with her, she didn't seem to want to listen. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I just find it hard to believe that Faye's overwhelming desire to see her dead mother again (even she herself called it an "obsession") could be all-consuming to the point that she was willing to put the life and happiness that she spent over 30 years building, (not to mention her family's happiness) in jeopardy. The first time Faye encountered this dilemma (going back versus remaining in the present), I could understand her struggle with it and even empathize with her, but after repeated conversations with people who would tell her over and over again the dangers of her actions and how it wasn't worth the risks, and even after she acknowledged they were right, but most importantly, she recognized that it was unfair to put her husband and daughters through the ordeal of potentially losing her if she got stuck in the past and couldn't return, she still insisted on going, as she missed her mom too much not to do so. It was unfathomable to me how she could be so irrational and irresponsible, especially given how much she claimed that she couldn't bear to leave her family.
The other part of this whole thing that annoyed me was the fact that Faye felt like she couldn't tell her husband Eddie the truth (about her time traveling) because she knew he would try to stop her (especially since each time she traveled back in time, she would get physically injured) and she wouldn't be able to bear it – so she decides to lie to him, even though she knows full well her husband can see right through her (as she repeats this continuously throughout the story). Then, when it gets to the point that her husband can't stand it anymore and thinks she's having an affair, she becomes indignant and belligerent, almost as though she is outraged that her husband would think such thoughts – again, her reaction made no sense given that she was the one evading his questions and telling him lies that even she herself didn't find plausible. And then later, Faye berates the one friend who believed in her — when he tried to persuade her not to take the risk of going back to the past again due to the dangers and what it would do to her family, she insults him and claims that he's jealous and throws his disability (blindness) at him...she even tells herself she knows she's being unfair and he's only trying to help her, but she's so mad at her own helplessness that she lashes out at anyone who tries to "walk her down from the ledge." Basically, my experience with this book was that each scene as the story progressed got more and more ridiculous, with Faye's behavior more and more reckless and hysterical – needless to say, the more I read, the more frustrated I became.
One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to characters in books are immature adults who behave unnecessarily defiantly – meaning they know that certain behaviors and/or actions are not constructive and, upon taking the time to weigh the risks, they understand that the outcome would be more harm than good, yet they proceed with the bad decision anyway, all the while telling themselves the equivalent of "I know I shouldn't but I'm going to do it anyway" (and then of course regret it later when things don't go as planned). Characters like these frustrate me to no end, especially when their actions and behavior make them come across as stereotypical (which Faye certainly did in this story, at least to me). Unfortunately, in this instance, it wasn't just the characters, as parts of the plot didn't make sense either, plus certain sections were bogged down by wordiness, with explanations and excessive descriptions of things that didn't seem to have anything to do with advancing the narrative.
Overall, I struggled with this one and while I wouldn't say it was a complete lost cause (I did finish the book after all), I felt that much of the story was a stretch and there really didn't seem to be a point to it. If I had to sum this one up, I would say that it's basically Faye on infinite loop trying to justify her time traveling with back-and-forth arguments that honestly didn't warrant 300 pages to get across. I also didn't feel the emotional pull that others seemed to experience with this book, though this was likely due to my annoyance with the main character being so strong that it was hard to feel anything else for her or any of the other characters. It could also be this was just the wrong book at the wrong time for me given the events of this past week and being inundated with examples of people showing poor judgment and making bad decisions. As I'm an outlier on this one amongst the many 4 and 5 star reviews, I would definitely recommend checking out those reviews as well for a more balanced perspective.
Received ARC from Gallery Books via NetGalley.
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