Book of the Month: A Little Hope by Ethan Joella

“A Little Hope” by Ethan Joella is a novel that was published Nov. 16 by Simon & Schuster, owned by Bertelsmann and National Amusements, parent company of Viacom, Inc. The plot follows a couple, Freddie and Greg Tyler, through the narratives of many characters in their small city of Wharton, Connecticut.

Greg is diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and boldly faces not only his foreboding future, but his wife and daughter’s if he cannot beat his cancer. Stories of a husband’s betrayal of his wife, a son’s struggle with addiction and a widow missing her spouse intertwine the Tyler family’s struggle.

While “A Little Hope” is described as an “emotionally powerful debut that immerses the reader into a community of friends, family, and neighbors … (while) celebrate(ing) the importance of small moments of connection and the ways that love and forgiveness can help us survive even the most difficult of life’s challenges,” I felt that the novel fell short.

While well-written, I didn’t connect with any of the characters. The first six chapters focus on someone different and without being invested in the characters that connected the Tylers, I found it difficult to remain interested. I rated “A Little Hope” a 2/5. Others who gave it a similar rating on Goodreads noted that the novel appealed to “straight white people problems” with more tragedies than hope.

A novel about grief, “A Little Hope” by Ethan Joella disappoints as a flat character-centric story with no resolution. While I can appreciate the author’s refusal to settle for a happy ending, I wasn’t touched by a total of seven characters who got approximately 50 pages of depressing, ordinary plot each. Attempting to convey the looming interconnectedness between each individual is challenging and requires well-developed characters and a tangible plot, both of which “A Little Hope” lacked.