What We Give, What We Take, Randi Triant
What We Give, What We Take, Randi Triant
19 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

What We Give, What We Take
A Novel

Author: Randi Triant

Narrator: Shea Taylor, Laura Jennings

Unabridged: 10 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/12/2022


Synopsis

In 1967, Fay Stonewell, a water tank escape artist in Florida, leaves for Vietnam to join the Amazing Humans—a jerry-rigged carnival there to entertain the troops—abandoning her disabled teenage son, Dickie, to the care of an abusive boyfriend.

Months after Fay’s departure, Dickie’s troubled home life ends in a surprising act of violence that forces him to run away. He soon lands in Manhattan, where he’s taken in by eccentric artist Laurence Jones. Fay, meanwhile, is also facing dangerous threats. From the night her plane jolts onto a darkened Saigon runway, she is forced to confront every bad decision she’s ever made as she struggles to return to her son. But the Humans owner is hell-bent on keeping her in Vietnam, performing only for war-injured children at a hospital, daily reminders of the son she’s left behind.

Decades later, Dickie is forty, living in a Massachusetts coastal town with a man who’s dying of AIDS, and doing everything he can to escape his past. But although Spin may be giving Dickie what he’s always wanted—a home without wheels—it seems that the farther Dickie runs, the tighter the past clings to him.

Ultimately, What We Give, What We Take is a deeply moving story of second chances and rising above family circumstances, however dysfunctional they may be.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Louise on March 19, 2022

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 In 1967, Fay Stonewell, a water tank escape artist in Florida, leaves for Vietnam to join the amazing humans - a jerry-rigged carnival there to entertain the troops - abandoning her disabled teenage son, Dickie, to the care of an abusive boyfriend. Months after Fay's departu......more

Goodreads review by Anna on March 13, 2022

If you expect a feel-good novel about a mother's struggle to support and eventually happily reunite with her son you will be disappointed. This is a story about a woman who's not only making a living as an escape artist but is trudging through life with the same attitude, making her disabled son the......more

Goodreads review by Melissa on April 11, 2022

Thank you to @booksparks for having me on this tour for What We Give, What We Take! Wow. This book was nothing short of amazing, heartbreaking, and transformative, all wrapped into one. Told in 3 parts from 2 POVs, we, the reader, follow along with Dickie and his mother Fay as they travel the country......more

Goodreads review by Women Using Words on March 10, 2022

What We Give, What We Take is an impressive piece of fiction. Heart wrenching at times and tender at others, this gripping narrative is unbelievably powerful and affecting. Readers find themselves a bit awestruck as they finish this masterful piece; the last lines rattle and reassure in equal measur......more

Goodreads review by Tisha on April 09, 2022

The two main characters come to life the moment the story begins. I loved the structure of the narrative and the attention to detail and description. Whether you know a setting or not, you are transported. This was a page turner, and while I raced to the end I didn’t want it to end. And kept thinkin......more