Review: Signal Fires (by Dani Shapiro)

My Review:  5 stars

It's not often that I find myself at a complete loss for words after finishing a book, to the point that I have to sit with it for a few days in order to form any semblance of coherent thoughts to actually put down on the page. That's how awed I was by Dani Shapiro's latest book, Signal Fires (her return to fiction after 15 years).  Though I had not read any of Shapiro's fiction or non-fiction works prior to this (something that I intend to rectify of course), I decided to pick this one up because of strong recommendations by a few book friends who said I would probably love this because the writing style is reminiscent of one of my favorite authors, Fredrik Backman.  And they were right, of course, as I did end up loving this one!

This book is one where it's best to go in knowing little to nothing about the plot in order to get the full emotional experience of it (though with that said, I do think that the publisher did a darn good job with the summary, which came across to me as carefully crafted with particular word choice in mind so as not to give away certain important plot points).  This is a character-driven story through and through (which I love!), but uniquely told in a nonlinear format that jumps back and forth between multiple perspectives as well as timeframes.  Usually, books of this nature (told from multiple characters' perspectives plus jumping back and forth in time) don't work too well for me, as it's distracting and often interrupts my reading flow — but for some reason (and surprisingly), it didn't bother me in the slightest with this book.  In fact, I barely noticed the unusual structure as I was reading, only figuring it out when I finished the book and was getting ready to write this review — undoubtedly a testament to Shapiro's mesmerizing and exquisite storytelling.  Indeed, I could not put this book down once I started it, nearly foregoing sleep just to finish it.

As mentioned earlier, I love character-driven stories, which was definitely an advantage going into this one, but even without that predisposition, I probably would've fallen in love with all the characters in here anyway based on the way they were written.  My favorite character was definitely Waldo, but Ben and Theo also stole a piece of my heart with their story arcs.  Even Shenkman and Sarah, two hugely flawed characters who tried so hard to do the right thing in the hopes of turning their lives around, got to me emotionally with their struggles, to the point that I was rooting for them as well.

Emotionally, there was actually a lot to unpack with this story and if I'm being honest, I would say I'm not quite ready to move on from this one yet (though I know I need to given the pile of books I have yet to get to).  I admire and appreciate the way that Shapiro was able to take life's most ordinary moments (moments we often take for granted) and build them into a story so rich with emotional nuance and poignancy. This was a quiet but powerful story, with an undercurrent of sadness throughout that broke my heart, yet at the same time, there was also an overarching message of hope and love that balanced things out so beautifully.  

Needless to say, I recommend this book wholeheartedly, though be prepared for the emotional journey that it will take you on.  For me personally, I intend to delve further into Shapiro's backlist books when I get a chance — can't wait!