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Almost A Hippie
274 pages, Paperback
Published February 23, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 8, 2026
There’s something quietly disarming about Almost A Hippie. It doesn’t romanticize the counterculture so much as sit inside it—watching, noticing, letting the contradictions reveal themselves without forcing a conclusion.
The novel follows Ashe as he drifts away from a conventional life into the loose, shifting world of the late 1960s. What stands out is how unforced it all feels. There’s no grand manifesto, no dramatic rebellion—just a series of small decisions, movements, and encounters that gradually reshape how he sees things. The road here isn’t a symbol so much as a condition: a way of being slightly unmoored, always between places.
The writing style is spare and observational, almost detached at times, which gives it a certain honesty. It reminded me a bit of Charles Bukowski—not in subject matter exactly, but in that same unadorned, matter-of-fact voice that lets the weight of a moment sit without commentary. There’s a similar refusal to dress things up or impose meaning where it hasn’t quite settled yet.
What I appreciated most is that the book doesn’t try to resolve the tension between freedom and its cost. The counterculture is present here not as nostalgia, but as something lived through—messy, uncertain, sometimes liberating, sometimes just another kind of drift.
It’s a quiet novel, but it lingers. Not because of what happens, but because of how it feels to move through it.
The novel follows Ashe as he drifts away from a conventional life into the loose, shifting world of the late 1960s. What stands out is how unforced it all feels. There’s no grand manifesto, no dramatic rebellion—just a series of small decisions, movements, and encounters that gradually reshape how he sees things. The road here isn’t a symbol so much as a condition: a way of being slightly unmoored, always between places.
The writing style is spare and observational, almost detached at times, which gives it a certain honesty. It reminded me a bit of Charles Bukowski—not in subject matter exactly, but in that same unadorned, matter-of-fact voice that lets the weight of a moment sit without commentary. There’s a similar refusal to dress things up or impose meaning where it hasn’t quite settled yet.
What I appreciated most is that the book doesn’t try to resolve the tension between freedom and its cost. The counterculture is present here not as nostalgia, but as something lived through—messy, uncertain, sometimes liberating, sometimes just another kind of drift.
It’s a quiet novel, but it lingers. Not because of what happens, but because of how it feels to move through it.
May 2, 2026
This engaging novel starts out with a series of initially amusing events in the life of a young drug-using man named Ashe. He and his sometime friends bounce around from one crash pad to another scoring drugs, food and a vague sort of companionship. Employment and actual cash are rare and often squandered. Ashe eventually finds that the sort of freedom he's been experiencing really does mean "nothing left to lose". After stealing a tent and using it to establish a more independent life, Ashe eventually lands a real job and some companionship which change everything.
While this novel is a sort of coming of age tale it is also a carefully crafted cautionary tale about the emptiness of freedom without purpose or responsibility.
Whatever your own coming of age story, you will enjoy reading this fine first novel.
While this novel is a sort of coming of age tale it is also a carefully crafted cautionary tale about the emptiness of freedom without purpose or responsibility.
Whatever your own coming of age story, you will enjoy reading this fine first novel.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews