“No. Things happen, but they don’t define me. What I do defines me.
Not my pain, not your pain, not the horrors in life, but the love we make.”
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent an embarrassingly long time sitting with this review, trying to find the right words to express how much I really enjoyed this book. And I’m sure that whatever I end up with won’t do it justice, but here goes:
Written in a style that weaves fantastical, cosmic elements with the everyday, and straightforward prose that ignores pretension, Reasons Only Time Allows is a thought provoking tale about Thelon, a man who has suddenly found himself with no recollection of his past and is struggling to put the pieces together. Between blips of memory returning unexpectedly, trying to puzzle out the context clues from his life, and repeated phone calls that cause a severe physical reaction, Thelon sets out on a journey to make sense of the world as it is appearing around him.
Guided by his mysterious, cryptic caller Nestor, Thelon makes his way across the country, gathering up Henry and Cassie (who he feels like he should know, despite his murky memory) and heads to Black Star, a location he knows in name only. This journey of self-discovery, self-actualization, and, ultimately, the convergence between pasts and future selves provides a compelling backdrop to the heart of the story – connectedness in all its forms.
In a story that is, at times, reminiscent of Stephen King’s Drawing of the Three intermixed with a transcendency that recalls the star-crossed connections of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the story’s trio of main characters and the deep connection between them.
Prior to reading this, my only experience with the Eudaimonia series was a dive into The Seeker’s Tarot (which I highly recommend) and I was happy to discover that this book stands alone well. While there are, as to be expected, allusions to bigger-picture story lines and references that might have made more sense with the context of the prior books, I didn’t experience any disorientation regarding the trajectory of the story and don’t think that the soul of the story suffered in any way.
That being said, having read this has me excited to head back to the beginning of the series and dive in from the start. I’m interested to see how context changes the experience both forwards and backwards in the storyline. I must say, I’ve become rather attached to the main characters of this book and I’m looking forward to learning more about them.
