11 | July | 2012

Title: Brand New Human Being

Author: Emily Jeanne Miller

Genre: Fiction

Published: June 2012 – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

272 pages

My take: Brand New Human Being is one of those novels I wished I had a friend who’d also read it so we could compare notes right away. I wanted to talk about Logan and Julie and Bennie and the rest of the characters. I wanted to talk about how differently we all handle grief especially when the center of the universe, in this case Logan’s father, has died.

Logan left grad school when his father was diagnosed with cancer. He’d met Julie several weeks earlier on a trip home. They spent every night together until Logan returned to school. Their son Owen was conceived during those two weeks. When Logan got the call about his dad he left school, married Julie and they both moved in with his dad Gus and Bennie.

Fast-forward a few years and Logan finds himself a stay-at-home dad with a 4-year-old son who seems to be reverting to a baby, and a wife who seems very unhappy. He also hasn’t finished his dissertation and feels the pressure of having less than a year to do so. On top of that there are other issues and people who are putting pressure on him. At times Logan made me think of a tea kettle building to a full whistle.

I can see where some readers might get annoyed with Logan and complain about his first world problems but really he’s a guy of a certain age (mid 30s) getting tired of letting life happen to him. He starts to take control of the things only he can. When even that seems impossible Logan does some things he almost immediately regrets. His father’s widow Bennie gets him to talk and she listens (and talks some sense into him). She seems to be about the only person who validates his feelings.

I liked Brand New Human Being and recommend it to readers who like books about imperfect people dealing with grief and trying to move forward.

Source: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for TLC Book Tour

Disclosure: See sidebar. I was not compensated for my review.

♦ ♦ ♦

You can find out more about the novel and author Emily Jeanne Miller at her website. You’ll find a link to discussion questions there as well.