Do Not Go On

by Bryan Furuness

The witness protection program is supposed to be a fresh start, but for the newly inducted Easterday family, it's more like a personal apocalypse. The mother refuses to leave their home in Baltimore, the father sinks into paranoia, and seventeen-year-old Ana gets stuck caring for him in the forsaken town of Morocco, Indiana, wondering if she's lost her future as well as her past. When a former hitman named Zeeshan offers them a way to come back home, Ana has to determine whether she would get her life back or lose it entirely. Over the course of a few months, she'll make her way through an underground world of reformed gangsters, hungry politicians, and teenagers smuggled in from the villages of Kashmir, all of them trying to find the line between secret and identity.

DO NOT GO ON is a story about secrets, second chances, and the ways that storytelling can save your skin and soul. In this book that is part crime confessional, part coming-of-age tale, the Witness Protection Program and college application process are two different ways of getting at the same question: Who are you, and who will you become?

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery

244 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2019

About the author

Author of a couple of novels: THE LOST EPISODES OF REVIE BRYSON and DO NOT GO ON.

Editor of AN INDIANA CHRISTMAS and MY NAME WAS NEVER FRANKENSTEIN: AND OTHER CLASSIC ADVENTURE TALES REMIXED and co-editor (with Michael Martone) of WINESBURG, INDIANA.

Lives in Indy, teaches at Butler, believes that breakfast burritos are the perfect food.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ana was a fairly typical teen, plugging away at schoolwork, and dreaming of college. Then her father saw something he wasn't supposed to . . . and she was handed a Hefty bag, and given 15 minutes to pack. Now, EVERYTHING has changed.

Welcome to Middle-of-Nowhere, Indiana, and the Witness Protection Program.

Who can Ana trust in a world filled with gray areas, smudgy heroes, and well-meaning villains?

I'm not even sure where to categorize this one: it's far too introspective for a typical crime/thriller novel, though it certainly fits both of those categories, and the teenage girl protagonist makes this a fine title for young adult; indeed, this is the sort of book young adults should be reading, and not that magical realism crap that publishers keep shoving their way. Let's just call it a fine, fine novel of treachery, redemption, and second chances.

And, let's just say - READ IT!

[B.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew Morocco, Indiana would be the perfect place to set a noir? Bryan Furuness’s Do Not Go On captures both the darkness and the light of the genre. Part thriller, part mystery, in Furuness’s capable hands, readers are treated to a page-turner in which the “who dunnit” is never as important as the “why.” Following a failed attempt on their lives, the Easterday family has no choice but to reinvent themselves in the Witness Protection Program. But who will they become along the way? And what will they lose in the process? Do Not Go On ensures that you must read on.

[Karin Salisbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do Not Go On brings a large cast of dynamic & surprising characters into the reader’s view. I kept finding myself asking: who are the heroes? And who are the enemies? Furuness makes finding the humanity in each of the characters of this plot-driven novel feel easy and yet oh-so-complicated. Though there was a slow build to get in necessary background, once the novel picked up—it moved quickly, with Ana’s character driving. And what a ride it was. (4 1/2 stars)

[Meredith Barth · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Do Not Go On, Furuness manages to deliver a novel that’s both punchy and sagacious, as gritty at times as it is thoughtful throughout. The intricate story of a family reluctantly, though not accidentally, entangled in a criminal operation unfolds one revelation at a time as we follow Ana Easterday into witness protection and watch her claw her way out.

Ana is a teenage girl with a big heart and a sharp tongue, whose acerbic wit can sometimes be too much, even for her. But, trust me, you won’t be able to get enough of her, so much so that with every twist and turn of the storyline, you’ll be holding your breath, hoping for bad luck—or perhaps an avalanche of consequences from one bad decision after the other—to finally turn good.

Plucked from a comfortable life in Baltimore, where her biggest problems were failing Driver’s Ed and the mailbox she ran down (yeah, they’re related), Ana is thrust into witness protection and the real world overnight. Ana’s father, a charmer who had always been able to make Ana’s problems go away even when running her mouth had already made them worse, has gone nearly mad with paranoia, and Ana’s new reality is more True Detective than Saved By The Bell. Now it’s up to Ana to make the family’s problems go away. But rather than charm, it will be Ana’s grit and indomitable will that see them through.

Along the way, Ana is surrounded by a cast of characters you can’t help but fall in love with: Zeeshan, a self-examining hitman who wrestles with issues of loyalty and morality (not to mention an itch that only violence seems to scratch). Logan, a sexually confused teenage boy and Ana’s only friend, ostracized in his small hometown as swiftly and forcefully as Ana was banished from hers. Droop, the marshal assigned to the Easterdays, whose relationship with Ana is intensified and complicated by the loss of his own daughter years ago. And the Old Liars, that table of geezers at the local diner we all know and either love or tolerate.

Quirky details bring every character to life, right down to the town of Morocco, Indiana itself, and even the most seemingly insignificant players are handled with a richness that intimates the fullness of their lives behind the scenes. Mired in small-town-Midwest drama one moment and thrust into riveting, high-stakes action the next, Furuness walks his characters fearlessly into dark territory, inside and out, making light apparent by contrast in places it would otherwise be concealed.

I was struck by the cinematic quality Furuness achieves, with descriptions that awaken all five senses (and sometimes a sixth), kinetic metaphors so electrically charged that once they’ve come alive inside of you it’s as though they keep vibrating even after you’ve put them back on the shelf, and dynamic pacing that hits you with intense thrills one moment and plunges you into Matrix-like slow motion the next.

With moments of tenderness and little gems of insight ever so subtly nestled among dick jokes and curse words, Furuness shows us his range, a signature mashup of playful and perceptive that is nothing short of delightful. Wherever your taste lies on the fiction spectrum, Do Not Go On will satisfy your story cravings.

[Barbara Shoup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t even try to categorize Do Not Go On by Bryan Furuness. If you like thrillers, cool. It’s a thriller about Benny, happily money-laundering from the Tip Top Lounge in Baltimore until he sees something he’s not supposed to see and ends up in the Witness Protection Program. If you like coming of age stories, it’s got that, too. Benny’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Ana, is suffering the usual indignities of adolescence along with trying to adjust to a new name and a whole new life in the godforsaken town of Morocco, Indiana. Family drama? Check. Benny’s marriage to Kate, who stayed behind, is crumbling—leaving Ana in the middle, trying to find a way to bring them all back together. If you have a taste for the absurd, how about an assassin bearing baked goods? If you like a book to break your heart: guaranteed.

If you’re an Indianapolis Colts fan (or were once a Baltimore Colts fan), there’s something here for you, too.

From Benny and Ana to the Old Liars, regulars at Karen’s Kitchen: to Zeeshan, the reluctant assassin, to Pete (A.K.A. Droop), the demoted Deputy U.S. Marshall grieving his daughter’s death—and D.W.Boxelder, trying to salvage his job at WITSEC in a missive detailing his version of what happened—every character is alive on the page and fully human.

If you love the world of Richard Russo, read Do Not Go On. I’m pretty sure you’ll find them similar.

[Melissa Fraterrigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Do Not Go On it’s obvious that Bryan Furuness is having a blast--and I felt the same sort of delight while reading this thriller. After Ana Easterday and her family enter the witness protection program their world goes from strange to stranger. When they are relocated from Baltimore to the small town of Morocco, Indiana, Ana’s mother refuses to join them, forcing Ana to become her father’s caretaker. What is most compelling about this book is the veritable energy Furuness expends on the page. Whole chapters thrum and sentences nearly levitate. Furuness never forgets the reader. He is as playful as he is intriguing and introduces a host of characters that are both one-of-a-kind and deeply portrayed. Do Not Go On kept me not only reading on—but lingering long after I finished the book.

[Janine Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do, Do Go On, and Pick Up This Thriller!

Regarding characterization, Mark Twain stated, “The trouble with most fiction is that you want [the characters] all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.” But in Bryan Furuness’ Do Not Go On, you invest in characters, major and minor, from the get go. Oppositional Ana, the Old Liars, Zeeshan – everyone has a story – everyone possesses the incalculability of life.

Plot is unpredictable. Just give up now on trying to determine trajectory!

Instead, settle into this suspenseful story, made all the more fascinating by spot on, frequently hilarious, Indiana place detail.

Do Not Go On is quick, clever, and heart-warming. Read it and see!

[Maggie Sweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is Do Not Go On a brilliant concept (a Witness Protection thriller meets family drama meets small-town comedy), it is filled with a cast of characters who feel like my friends and family. A teenage girl pulls on my mom heart hard, a gangster who is so sweet, I want to believe he is doing the right thing, and my favorites - the Old Liars. I swear I've seen those guys at the Bean Blossom Cafe near my dad's. It makes me wonder if Bean Blossom is actually a nest for the witness protection program.

[Tarot & Tomes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book from the author for an honest review.

A review excerpt by author Dan Barden, on the back of the book, reads "Do Not Go On is a coming-of-age novel wrapped inside of a thriller." In my opinion, this book was sort of a coming-of-age novel, and sort of a thriller, but did not quite meet both of those standards. At 244 pages, it's quite short for a thriller, compared to several other thrillers I have read, and I feel like the parts of this book that were supposed to be thrilling, could have been fleshed out and drawn out more, and the coming-of-age aspects of the novel felt like they were jammed in there, and only slightly made sense because one of the main characters is a seventeen-year-old girl. There were too many perspectives in the novel, as well. Normally, in a thriller, you have one or two perspectives: a victim/detective/law enforcement official and the "bad guy." This story is told from the perspective of Ana, her father, her mother, the "bad guy," and a WITSEC marshal. Too many brains to pick through in too short of a book.

That being said, it's not a bad novel, it just wasn't my cup of tea. If it had been fleshed out more, and if the perspectives had been cut down, it would have made it a better novel.

[Eric Michel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do Not Go On, the most recent novel by Bryan Furuness (pub. Black Lawrence Press, Dec. 2019), quite literally starts with a bang. “Her old life ended the night someone pried open a window in her home and rolled a bomb into her parents’ bedroom.” (9)

It’s a forthright line that packs explosive power itself and serves as the perfect pacemaker for the rest of the novel. Do Not Go On clocks in at just under 250 pages, but if someone were to tell you the plot at the bus stop it would sound more like an epic novel. Not a word is wasted in this thrilling tale, which spans years and continents to create an incredibly compelling and original narrative that’ll have even the most deliberate readers racing to turn the pages.

Ana Easterday is the portrait of the 1990s American teenager. “She loved jangly bracelets, five or six on each wrist. ‘What’s up, slut?’ was the way she greeted her best friend Danielle. She…practiced dance moves in her bedroom mirror, and consistently tied up the phone until her mother surrendered and gave Ana her own line” (8). When she’s forced to move with her father to a podunk town in Indiana as a direct result of the bombing, she reacts the same way any teenager would: she wants to get the hell out.

But she can’t. Ana and her father, Ben, must become dutiful participants in the Witness Protection Program until her father can testify against his old employer, a man named Veedy who is wanted for money laundering and much more serious crimes revealed later in the story. When Ben falls out of a tree and suffers a serious brain injury, Ana decides she has to do something if she ever wants a shot at a normal life. In a series of clandestine maneuvers, she goes against all WITSEC protocol and makes contact with the men who want her father dead. Her proposal is a simple one–she’ll do anything they ask if they can set things right and her family can come home. She becomes the ball in a deadly game of ping pong between the FBI and a criminal syndicate, risking her life and the lives of everyone she knows in the process.

The biggest strength of Do Not Go On is its narrative balance. As Ana spends her time duping federal agents and trying to find a semblance of normalcy in a foreign community, readers are given insight to the world before the bomb. Some of the greatest parts in the novel are flashbacks about Ana’s father– from his simple start as a moneyrunner to his ascent into restauranteur and money launderer–Furuness inserts readers on the ground level of a criminal organization, slowly revealing details that become more sinister with every page. (What’s more impressive is that some of the bad guys are likeable; in chapter four, the hitman, Zeeshan, is seen reading The Fix: Break Your Addiction in Ten Minutes because he wants to stop killing people.) Both narrative arcs play off each other expertly; as one storyline moves forward, the other remains stuck in dramatic suspension while the stakes in each are equally high. It’s a perfect ebb and flow until everything collides in a dramatic crescendo. The give and take of the two primary narrative lines is what makes this book so hard to put down.

If narrative strength is yin, then character development is yang, and Do Not Go On has both in spades. From Ana’s sardonic wit to Zeeshan’s surprisingly big heart, each major character in the novel is layered and complex in ways that are difficult to predict. Characters can be frustratingly dense at times and oddly prescient at others, but the swings are handled with care and craft. Furuness writes high schoolers shockingly well for a middle-aged man, and believability is everything in a novel that places its cast in such extraordinary situations.

If a story clicks on both levels–a well-paced plot and deep characters with which to move it– it’s done its job. If that story happens to make readers feel the entire spectrum of human emotion while moving at breakneck speed, even better. Do Not Go On is a story that will stick– Ana Easterday is indelible and the things that happen to her are riveting. It’s a short, pithy novel that is easy to devour in a day or two that’ll leave you thinking about it weeks later.

[Jim Curtin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read! My one issue was the many narrators, it was sometimes difficult to follow the story when it jumped from person to person. overall good read, I didn't expect the ending at all and it kept moving along well enough to keep me interested

[Matthew Del · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ignore the title—GO ON and read this book!

Never before have I read a book combining the witness protection program with SAT prep, but here you have it! Simply put, “Do Not Go On” is worth the read.

At its heart, this novel is a classic suspense/thriller: Is Ana going to stop the bad guys and get her family back together or will she be too late? But, Furuness skillfully fills this story out—there’s more here than action. We see a complex relationship between Ana and her dad, a fraught and believable friendship between Ana and Logan, and human traffickers who are much more complex than faceless criminals.

My favorite parts about this book are the complex, engaging characters, a dynamic story line, and a good dose of wit. While 90% of me admires how much Furuness packs into this sub-300 page novel, 10% of me did struggle to keep track of everything. There’s a whole handful of main characters to keep track besides a slew of a supporting cast, some people with nicknames, some not, and 200 pages in I still found myself getting characters and storylines a little bit mixed up.

Granted, this may be on me as much as on Furuness—I probably could have read a little closer and read the book in fewer sittings—but I think it’s worth mentioning nonetheless.

Another plus, though—this is a Midwest book through and through. I love books that use real towns and landmarks, and Furuness does that here. An added bonus for any Hoosiers or Midwesterners reading this book!

At the end of the day, it seems to me like Furuness set out to do a lot with this book, and he overwhelmingly succeeded. He has me thinking about strange ways our lives get tangled with others, questioning at what point can sacrificing a few people now be worth saving many others later, and how far should we follow our gut despite all odds to save those we love?

Do Not Got On is an engaging adventure through and through. That said, my best advice would be to ignore the title, pick up the book, and go on and read it.

[Christy Jacobi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book hit the sweet spot for me - great characters, page-turning story, truth, humor, heart, quirky, real.

The characters are so good. They are relatable because they are frustrating and lovable at the same time - like a family member that you want to both shove and hug. The author pulls so much meaning into each characters struggle. He has these zingers... "Maybe this is a common lie, telling ourselves we're helping someone, even as we're escorting them to ruin."... that he slips in, while the humor and thrilling story keep it from being heavy or trite or predictable.

The setting and complimentary characters make it richer because they are quirky with heart - just on the edges of reality yet Midwestern relatable. Like the guy who periodically mows messages into the county courthouse yard with his riding mower. Or the grocery store surrounded by fields of vegetables but stocked with meat. So much meat. Furuness is a master at making the Midwest come to life in a humorous yet loving way (again both shoving and hugging). He gets it. It is very authentic and enjoyable.

It's hard to describe how he mixes all of this into a thriller involving witness protection and hit men with a smash up ending. But he does. One of my favorite books this year.

[Lyn Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Ana’s father, Ben, finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, the family is transferred from their home in Baltimore into the middle of Podunkville, Indiana as part of the witness protection program.

We life-long Hoosiers who grew up in small, rural towns have often joked that no one has heard of our town or knows where it is. So, Podunkville is the perfect place to hide because we aren’t known, no one is looking there.

It’s the mid-90s and most teenagers are worrying about high school and making plans for college, but Ana is stuck in a town that doesn’t feel like home with only her father. Ben, in his increasing paranoia, suffers an accident. Since Ana’s mother refused to come with the family, it forces Ana to take care of her father on her own with no idea who she can trust in this small town. Ana’s increasing bitterness towards the situation makes her a very compelling and spirited main character bucking assistance from those trying to help at every turn.

Will the gangsters headed up by a villain named Veedy be caught? Will Ana get to return to Baltimore or achieve her plans for college or is that life gone forever? Will Ben recover? Will Ben and Ana go on to bring down Veedy, or will they continue to live a life in hiding, always looking over their shoulders?

Brian Furuness brilliantly builds a complex story with unique characters you grow to care about while weaving a plot full of twists and turns and unlikely alliances. This thriller keeps you guessing all the way through as to who can be trusted and who can’t and not knowing where anyone will show up or end up.

[Earl Carrender · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part suspense novel, part crime story, part coming of age tale, DO NOT GO ON is a page turner that keeps you guessing right up to the end with twists and turns in every chapter and a cast of the most delightfully unreliable narrators you will ever encounter. Ben and his teenage daughter Ana enter the witness protection program and try to build a new life in the small town of Moroco, Indiana, but of course, find it difficult to shed their past and start fresh even with (seemingly) no other choice. Meanwhile, Ana's mother (who refuses to go with them) connects with the gangsters her husband was mixed up with in their previous life, in an attempt to bring her husband and daughter home. Interspersed throughout are reports from D.W. Boxelder to his superiors in the Program on how it all went awry. Nothing and no one is what they seem from the villain Zeeshan, to the people running the Program, to the denizens of Moroco (a group of curmudgeons known as The Liars who frequent the diner where Ana works, one of whom drunkenly plows messages into the town's courthouse lawn ["Lies, Allies"] Ana's friend, Logan and his despicable brother, Jared) and the story unfolds layer by alluring layer. A novel that defies category, it is instantly readable and relatable and impossible to put down!

[Bill]

Did you go to college? Was it some kind of crazy ideal before you went? Do you still think of it that way? In a very cool start to this novel, College is what the protagonist is obsessed with. It's her pie-in-the-sky dream to go. The brochures she collects are like some kind of future-porn to her because her life hiding out in the Hinterlands is so depressing. Like in any great story, things seem hopeless. In a really funny, hopeful, poetic way.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly on two very different levels. The first is big-picture. Great twists and turns. You're not even sure what genre this book is sometimes, but it never matters. It's a STORY. A good one. The second level is the page/paragraph/sentence level. There are moments of humor and wisdom on every page.

[Robert Helfst · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Do Not Go On" by Bryan Furuness is the rare sort of book that deftly blends a thriller plot (a family in witness security is pursued across the country by a gangster's fixer) with a ton of heart and humor. This book was full of far more emotion than I expected and unfolds in a rapid unspooling of inevitability in its conclusion that makes for seriously delightful reading. My only complaint is that I didn't think to write something like this first. Pick up a copy and enjoy deft storytelling from one of the best champions of the craft I got to meet and learn from during my time at Butler University.

[Eliza Tudor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Commission a portrait. A torch has been passed. Those of us with an Elmore Leonard-sized hole in our heart can cheer because Bryan Furuness is writing. I haven’t felt this way about characters in eons. Furuness created the thriller we need right now: smart, particular, and punchy. Do Not Go On hurts so good. Broke my heart and held me tight. And, if that wasn’t enough, it offers a biscuit that will make you break out the baking powder. What more could you want?

[Kaye McSpadden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I can't say I was wild about it. The concept was intriguing: the trials and tribulations of a family that enters the federal witness protection program, re-locating from the city of Baltimore to a small rural town in Indiana. There were several problems with the book, IMO.

First, there were simply too many POV characters -- seven, by my count. Thankfully, most of the story is told in third person, but still, it's told through the alternating points of view of each of these individual characters. These characters were interesting -- each had his/her unique backstory and set of motivations and challenges -- but since we only get a superficial rendering of most of them, I felt the overall story suffered. I think it would have been better if Furuness had focused on only two characters (or three at the most), which would have allowed a deeper dive into understanding them.

Also, because so many different themes are touched on, I felt like each of these themes was covered only superficially, and the book couldn't make up its mind what it was. At times, it seemed like a coming-of-age story of adolescent angst and sexual confusion, while at others it seemed to be a crime thriller, while at others, it seemed to be tackling the real-world problems of human trafficking and the world of politics. Any one of these would be a worthy topic to explore, but here, we just get a taste of each.

Another big problem with the book is the fact that some of the characters and some of the storylines were not very believable. I especially could not understand Ana's mom and her actions and motivations -- I mean, really, that *thing she did* to encourage Ben to go into the Program? Not to mention -- the weirdness of Ben living in a tree and his horrible accident -- how could everyone be so nonchalant about the severe damage he suffered? That's just not how real people behave.

Finally, I had a big problem with DW Boxelder's "official statement." It simply does not read like an official statement -- it sounds too much like the author's narrative, rather than a distinctive voice.

I did enjoy the twists and turns of the story, and I think it could make a really great movie, but as a novel, it could have been better.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book I have read by Furuness, who is a friend. I enjoyed his first novel, but liked this one much better. I didn't always "like" the characters, but I've found they've stuck with me since I've finished the book, which is my litmus test for good character development. Since the book is set in Indiana, I found several of Furuness' descriptions of Hoosier life "spot on." There were also many times I reread a line because it had a simple profoundness to it or was humorous to me. The interspersed written statements from D.W. Boxelder foreshadowed things to come, so that I wasn't quite sure how the book was going to end. Was it going to have a happy ending or not?! I was perplexed by the choice of title until it was revealed about 3/4ths through the book and then it made total sense. The blurb was absolutely correct, "a coming-of-age novel wrapped inside of a thriller."

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do Not Go On
by
Bryan Furuness

4 Stars

Do Not Go On hooked me from the first page and kept me on the line until the very end. The witness protection program is supposed to protect the people who choose to testify against the bad guys; to offer a fresh start to both the witnesses and their families. But what happens when the wheels start to fall off the process, the witness and the family start to come apart, the government’s role isn’t entirely honest and honorable, and the bad guys aren’t really who they seem? What happens is you wind up with a terrific story, full of characters that it’s easy to identify with and root for, extremely well-written, funny and poignant all at the same time – in short, a complete winner!

https://mhassett23.blogspot.com/2020/...

[Giedra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this tale of a high school student whose family is spirited away from Baltimore to Indiana in a witness protection program. Her father had been laundering money for a shady character, and when he happened to "see too much" about what that character was doing, he had to go into hiding. The story gradually reveals the operation the father was unknowingly part of, the corrupt motives behind a government sting to bring it down, and along the way explores the experiences of people doing the wrong things but with good intentions and the prices they pay along the way.

[Jessica Ferrara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do Not Go On is a crime novel, so not a genre I usually read. However, the premise is interesting and it is well written. The story starts slow but the pacing dramatically picks up in the final third. The setting feels well fleshed out and I didn't see those twists coming.

[Bentley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever wondered about the WITSEC Program, then this is the book for you.

[Indiana Authors Awards]

Late in Bryan Furuness’s Do Not Go On, the narrator, the current director of the federal Witness Security Program, recalls his predecessor telling a story to a family that will soon go into hiding. While no one in the room seems to be taking in the plot, the narrator sees his old boss as “Charon, ferrying his shell-shocked passengers away from their old lives… He was giving them a few moments of transition so the next step didn’t feel like a non sequitur. And if they did happen to catch a few words, it would give them something to clutch onto as they were drowning. Story as life preserver...

Read our full review by Lori Rader-Day here: https://www.indianaauthorsawards.org/...

[Laura Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A unexpected and unique story line and wonderfully relatable characters make this crime thriller a fun read.