Who have you hurt?
And did they deserve it?
"Autumn" is a literary book from indie author Alisha Galvan. It follows our MMC Damon as he is on trial for the murder of his best friend. It jumps back and forth between present day and the past as we learn about the events that led to the murder and beyond. It has elements of romance, coming-of-age, suspense, mystery, and emotional thriller. Check your trigger warnings.
This is by far my favorite thing Alisha has released. It's written in a very literary and poetic writing style, often waxing poetic (in a good way), and is easily the best written book I've read in all of 2024. The imagery and sensory detail are so wild, really immersing the reader in the setting and the character emotions. It's told in a deep first person POV, and Damon is a bit of an unreliable narrator, which was fun.
The one thing to know going in is the style of writing and how long the chapters are. It's a slow-burn, and very introspective. If you can get on board with long chapters and stories told with a lot of inner reflection, then I think you'll have a great time with this book. It's not for readers looking for a fast-paced, high action type of storytelling. It's very subtle and understated for most of the narrative.
This has a lot to say about love: what it means to us, how we define it, how we learn from it and grow from it. It's about loss and death and family. Not just the families we are born into, but the ones that we choose or that choose us. But it's also about monsters. The ones that live inside of us all. The people who hurt us and the people we hurt... sometimes intentionally. How do we define that moral line between what is justified and what is too far? How far will you go for love? Will you sacrifice for it? Hurt for it? Avenge for it? Kill for it?
But it's also, ultimately, about hope. Despite the stories we tell about ourselves, or the ones others tell for us, it's about the hope of healing. The hope of better days. The hope of redemption despite the bad things that have been done to us or we have done to others. This is a profound exploration of the marks that the people we love leave on our soul. Forever etched into our pasts and futures. How people never leave us, even after death. And how that love can linger for years, lifetimes, generations.
This novel gets my highest recommendation in every sense of the word. If you're a fan of Alisha's, and you're ok with long chapters and a very poetic/literary style of writing, then you will love this and where it goes. I sobbed for a solid twenty minutes after reading this. It broke me, and then healed me. I'm still thinking about it.
I have a million highlighted quotes, each one deserving. But I will leave you with one of my favorites:
"Love is nothing you leave behind. You carry it with you, tucked shallow or deep, and turn to it when it's needed most."