The Impossible Knife of Memory (book 43)

I guess I was expecting more out of this book. I was expecting a book about a person with PTSD, the effects it had on their life, and their inspiring recovery from the disease. Instead I got a book abotu an enabling daugther that allows her dad to drink himself to oblivion instead of seeking medical help. The daugther herself has some issues with memory which I understood but I thought certain components of the book could have been left out or should have been stressed more. Hayley had moments where the past would rip into the future often and that made sense but there was like 5 pages spread out throughout the book that were her dad's memories of the war. I think that if Laurie Halse Anderson really wanted to add those memories she should have added more to stress the horrors that he had seen. I also thought the book could have done without the "romance". It was categorized as contemporary on some sites yet I didn't get the feel of a contemporary book. I didn't get the good feels that I normally get from contemporary novels. I thought the relationship between Finn and Hayley was halfdone and lackluster. I never really felt anything when it came to them as a couple. I liked the idea of Finn's charcter (his nerdy quirkiness and all) yet I didn't really think he was essential to the story. I was also confused with the relationship between Trish and Hayley at first. Hayley's memories of Trish all seemes normal and fun until she left and then Hayley was unwilling to let Trish help her dad. I guess Trish used to be an alcoholic but she seemed to genuinly want to help and Hayley kept pushing her away. The problems with her dad kept building and he was unable to face the past. When she found him laying on the floor with blood around his head I had accepted the fact that her dad would kill himself and it was kind of anti-climatic when he just sat up. Apparently he was just laying in a pool of blood from his nose or something. Then at the end of the book she once again finds her dad ready to kill himself and this time I'm like "he better either do it or decide to get some help". Then it turns into this whole thing where Hayley is standing on an overhang of snow that is about to collapse. I couldn't really picture this. All I could think of was Wiley Cayote standing on a floatign pile of snow and it suddenly colapsing. It takes his daughter almost dying trying to talk him down from the edge of cliff for her dad to get help. I just thought that the story didn't connect very well and that it could have been condesed into a much shorter book. It was very drawn out and kind of depressing. It wasn't something I would ever recomend.