She Pulls Off the Interstate

by Eugene Ahn

On an evening like any other, a mysterious woman moves into room Four-One-Three of an apartment building in a new city with the firm determination to start a fresh life here. Running away from a horrible past, she seeks solace and peace she hopes to find through isolation, loneliness, and a self-imposed clean slate. However, despite her best efforts, she soon finds herself surrounded by kind and good people, people who genuinely care about her. Her co-workers at the local diner. The man who lives downstairs. His young and ever-cheerful daughter. People who want to be let into her life, people who might need her protection from a cruel and uncaring world... Quiet, deadly, and haunted by a violent past, she quickly finds herself pulled between the desire to connect with another human being and the desire to fall back into her darker side...even as fate begins to set in motion a series of events that will lead to a cataclysmic encounter with a familiar and vengeful figure, someone she wished she could forever forget... She Pulls Off the Interstate is a thematically-driven novel that tackles the complex concepts of who are our heroes, who are our villains, and who are the ones hovering over the space in-between. Through its easy-to-read text and cynically-laced voice, the novel pushes its readers to ask themselves dark questions on the subjects of redemption, escape, family, and human nature, while all along whispering hints of even darker answers. Slow to start and disturbingly violent to the end, She Pulls Off the Interstate finds itself at once standing on familiar ground and unafraid to spill fresh blood all over it. With a female protagonist in place of the traditional male role and enough twists throughout the plot to keep the readers on the sharpest edge of their minds, She Pulls Off the Interstate sets itself to the simple task of entertaining its audience while at the same time aspiring to the higher goal of making the same audience think long after the last words are read.

260 pages, Paperback

First published October 19, 2013

Reviews

[Liz Seach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the first ten or fifteen pages of this book. It was very well written. For all its sparseness, it communicated volumes with just the right details. Most of the similes were spot on and fresh. It made me realize how much I've been missing things being written in the third person.

And yet, the highly descriptive setting-up of the story continued for well more than a third of the book, which definitely started to lag. Once things started happening, the pace picked up, and I was hopeful that the book was back on track, but once the pace really picked up during the last quarter of the book, it seemed like a completely different story than it had started out to be. I'm not saying that I didn't expect the main character's past to catch up with her, it's just that that past, when it arrived, seemed to bring with it an entirely different idiom than we'd started with. Oh, and it's all extremely violent. And the ending made me grumpy. But if you like violence told in a somewhat detached manner, and you don't mind books ending with purposefully unresolved plots, this is your book.

[Eli Hinze · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has potential, but fell flat for me. The cover is intriguing and of much higher quality than what is usually seen in the indie market, – but a cover alone can’t support a story. (Still, kudos on the cover.)

The characters lack almost all meaningful characterization. At first I thought the author was going for an objective third person point of view, but he’ll occasionally hop into characters heads, so that’s obviously not what he’s going for. Or at least, not consistently. Granted, I like what I got of the main character. She’s powerful and carries the story almost entirely by herself, even if her emotions remain at a constant throughout.

The formatting is a distraction. The most glaring thing is that there are no quotation marks in the book. I understand this might’ve been a stylistic choice, but it’s a confusing and unnecessary one, making it difficult to separate out action and dialogue. No book benefits from not having quotation marks. However, they can easily suffer without them.

The plot lacked conflict for the first 80% of the book.

The writing has promise, but is bogged down by excessive description. (One might want to look at Chapter 4: Proportion in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. It’s a gold mine of information.) Even the dramatic scenes suffer from this, stealing the appropriate “oomf” and punch from them that’d really make them pop.

Free the writing of unnecessary sentences/paragraphs, format it according to what’s standard, add in more conflict and tension throughout, and give the cast true characterization, and this book would jump right off the page. As it currently stands, it gets 2 stars from me.

Best of luck to the author in his future work.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, I think the cover art deserves a mention - it is of a far higher quality than the vast majority of independently-published novels, and does a great job of setting the tone of the novel. The various settings are well established, and the author lends them a lot of texture which helped to draw me into the scenes. The language is pretty pared-down throughout, and free of excessive description and dialogue - this helps to keeps the pace up and I rarely lost the thread.

I can't say I was particularly drawn to the characters, although the plot itself was very engaging and the twist was unexpected and really well-handled. The formatting was slightly unusual - it didn't bother me in any way but I did wonder at times whether it was a stylistic choice or just a slight lack of polish.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the novel - the tone was set early and maintained throughout, the setting was consistent and believable, and the plot was very engaging.

[Kellee · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is definitely a book you shouldn't judge by it's cover and definitely not the title.

The title pulled me in and when I first started the book it was interesting. Not good and not bad. What did confuse me was there were no quotations during any of the dialogue. I've never seen that before.

The writer has a lot of potential, however the book got very boring and 79% into the book, it was finally revealed who the main character was and even that didn't hold my attention. By that time I was already annoyed by the book and honestly, I'm not even sure if it was explained why the character was who she was. It's possible that was explained and I just wasn't paying enough attention due to boredom.

There is a cliffhanger in the end, but I won't be reading the next one to find out what happened.

[Gail Ritter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a 5 star read for me because I couldn't stop turning the pages. Did I "like" it? I was drawn in by the story of our nameless heroine, but at the same time repelled by it. She's a woman on auto-pilot, detached from the life around her. When other characters talk, there are no conversational quote marks around their words; she's that distanced from them. It takes a while for us to learn what's going on, so see our girl loosen up in some ways..but when she does let herself feel something, the results are disasterous. How does she end up? You tell me......

[John Hanscom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3½ - 4. Think a malevolent female Jack Reacher.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was definately not what I thought it was because I was under the impression the main character was escaping her past and starting over. Boy was I wrong.......the main character was definately not who I thought she was. I wasn't too sure about all those short chapters but I think those served to tell the story in light of how the main character was in personality and speech. If you think this is a sweet story of a woman who escaped her past and changed her life, you will be disappointed for sure.

[Misty Weeks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly felt pulled into the story for the first 3/4 of the book. The dialogue without quotes was intriguing - and gave the main character distance from the others and shared her minimalist nature. I knew something in her past was going to creep into her present - if not there wouldn't have been much of a story. However, the turn it took was not at all what I had envisioned. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed by the major turn of events. I had to wonder if maybe the author wrote the first 3/4 then set the manuscript aside and came back to it much, much later and lost the original flow.... almost like it was a different author all together.

I was amazed to find the author is so young. Born in 1993? Wow! I don't think I could have come up with this story at that age. Of course, here I am as a 40-something and still haven't found my story.

[Joan Case · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had trouble at first with the author's choice to write this book in the present tense. He used short sentences and short chapters with repetitive language. But these turned out to be devices that helped to build up the overall "feel" of the story. Wow! I was totally blown away! There were times when I had to put the book down and just breathe, the way I would turn my head away from a movie when I realize what is going on. This book is action-packed and emotional. I would definitely recommend it to others.

[Martina Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

absolutely would have been a 4-star book, except for the"unique" writing style, a la the minimalist conversation-indicating punctuation. I like the way it reads, the blunt, simple sound of it in my head, but I don't feel like quotation marks would have taken away from that. Instead, it comes off a mildly confusing and jumbled experience. The story, on the other hand, was endearing and enjoyably minimal for the subject matter.

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pretty interesting. A lack of quotation marks takes a few chapters to get used to but isn't bad. The action is a bit out of control in some parts but overall I could see some of this happening maybe somewhere out west. If you like thrillers with a heaping helping of violence, this is the book for you.

[Jeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good. I kept thinking I had it all figured out, just to discover I was completely wrong. Love the ending too...

[Denise Heise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story kept my interest but one thing just did not work for me. How someone so cold blooded could be so caring. Dedicatedly hated the ending. Least favorite way to end a book.