After retiring to North Carolina, Lil is determined to leave letters, diaries, and notes to her and her husband Frank’s children. While Lil is determined to do that, Frank is determined to find what has been left behind his childhood home which is now owned by Shelley and her son. These visits from Frank trigger memories from
Book: Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle
Series: Standalone
Publication Date: July 28, 2020
(Thank you NetGalley for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review)
**While this book has already been out I did receive it early so thank you again NetGalley!**
Tags: Adult, historical fiction, family, memories, discovery
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository | Thrift Books
Read: May 19, 2021 to May 20, 2021
Welcome to my review for the Libertie blog tour!
Lil and Frank married young, launched into courtship when they bonded over how they both—suddenly, tragically—lost a parent when they were children. Over time, their marriage grew and strengthened, with each still wishing for so much more understanding of the parents they’d lost prematurely.
Now, after many years in Boston, they have retired in North Carolina. There, Lil, determined to leave a history for their children, sifts through letters and notes and diary entries—perhaps revealing more secrets than Frank wants their children to know. Meanwhile, Frank has become obsessed with what might have been left behind at the house he lived in as a boy on the outskirts of town, where a young single mother, Shelley, is just trying to raise her son with some sense of normalcy. Frank’s repeated visits to Shelley’s house begin to trigger memories of her own family, memories that she’d rather forget. Because, after all, not all parents are ones you wish to remember.
Hieroglyphics reveals the difficulty of ever really knowing the intentions and dreams and secrets of the people who raised you. In her deeply layered and masterful novel, Jill McCorkle deconstructs and reconstructs what it means to be a father or a mother, and what it means to be a child piecing together the world all around us, a child learning to make sense of the hieroglyphics of history and memory.
Spoiler Free Review
After retiring to North Carolina, Lil is determined to leave letters, diaries, and notes to her and her husband Frank’s children. While Lil is determined to do that, Frank is determined to find what has been left behind his childhood home which is now owned by Shelley and her son. These visits from Frank trigger memories from Shelley’s own past with her family, ones that she doesn’t want to surface.
I gave Hieroglyphics 3.5 stars, enjoying the way this story was told and the emotions of family that ran through each word. I enjoyed the story behind Lil’s determination to leave her memory for her children and the future generations of her family.
I found that throughout the book, I just wasn’t as invested as I was. I think that it tells the story of family so well and I really did enjoy that aspect, however, there were some parts that were kind of stalling a little bit. I felt that I was reading some parts that just seemed to drag on a little too long. However as a story, I think Hieroglyphics was really nice.
I liked reading about the relationship of the family as well as how Shelly came into the picture. I think that the representation of a not so perfect family is really important and Hieroglyphics really showed that not all families have to be perfect. I think that the development of each relationship, Lil writing the letters, Frank wanting to go back into his childhood home and search, and Shelley with her family and her past. Each of them had so much depth within the stories and that was really something that was written well.
Thank you again to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for providing me with and ARC of Hieroglyphics in exchange for an honest review.
I hope you guys have a great day, please like and comment down below if you enjoyed this book as well or if you plan on reading it!
Loves,
Veronica Chen