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Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce

Literary fiction

Pull Me Under

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Kelly Luce, on your first book!

by Kelly Luce

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Quick take

Luce delves deep into the problems Rio faced - losing her mother, being abandoned by her father and tormented by the school bully - but never once makes excuses for her violent act.

Why I love it

What no one knows about Rio Silvestri, a thirty-something woman living a picture perfect life in Colorado with her husband and daughter, is that when she was 12 years old and living in Japan, she stabbed the school bully in the neck with a letter opener. Gasp!

Rio would be content to keep her secret hidden for the rest of her life, but when a mysterious letter arrives at her doorstep informing her of the death of her father, Rio realizes she may not have put the past completely behind her She journeys back to Japan alone for his funeral opening the door to decades-old hurts and grief, while taking readers on a dark journey in search of truth and closure.

Kelly Luce is an incendiary writer, and her sentences sizzle like a lit fuse. Beginning with the story of Rio’s traumatic childhood in Japan, Luce delves deep into the problems Rio faced - losing her mother, being abandoned by her father and tormented by the school bully - but never once makes excuses for her violent act. Instead Luce captures Rio’s loneliness and rage, and explores these themes with rawness and compassion, from Rio’s teen years as a resident of a Japanese psychiatric facility, through to her years of rebuilding herself in America, right up to her return to Japan.

The question at the heart of this psychologically intense mystery is not a whodunit - we know Rio did it. Instead, the mystery lies within Rio herself: Has she really changed? Will returning to Japan make her repressed feelings and anger come bubbling to the surface? Is it possible to be a whole person without redemption or forgiveness? Can a person ever escape her past?

I cannot stress enough how magnificent the writing is in the book, and how well Luce breathes a haunting realism into the story so that despair and hope become entwined.

Member ratings (1,494)

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View all
Intermezzo
The Book of George
Real Americans
Dirty Diana
Wellness
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
Annie Bot
Bear
Mercury
True Biz
Family Happiness
The Lady Waiting
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Good Material
The Bullet Swallower
Happy All the Time
Rental House
Alice Sadie Celine
Let Us Descend
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shark Heart
Homeseeking
Transcendent Kingdom
Hello Beautiful
Dominicana
What's Mine and Yours
The Unsettled
Ask Again, Yes
Vladimir
Infinite Country
The Prophets
Normal People
The Verifiers
Salvage the Bones
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
I Have Some Questions for You
Black Buck
The History of Love
Age of Vice
Paper Names
The Light Pirate
The Secret History
The Kite Runner
Memorial
The Half Moon
Happiness Falls
The Gifted School
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Knockout Queen
Little Monsters
Yerba Buena
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Free Food for Millionaires
A Burning
The Mothers
The Water Dancer
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Fleishman Is in Trouble
Lot
An American Marriage
The Animators
The Mars Room
Exit West
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Woman No. 17
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