Review: More than Anything by T.T. Kove

Author: T.T. Kove

Pages/Word Count: 380 Pages

At a Glance: Each page brings us closer to happiness, and the ending is fitting for the tone of the whole story.

Blurb: Arriving home after work one evening, Jørgen sees a young man who looks adrift and out of place—and who promptly has a seizure on the sidewalk. Jørgen takes care of him until the seizure passes and then, not knowing who to contact, takes care of him for the night. After giving the kid, Geir, a ride home the next morning, he expects that to be the end of it. He doesn’t expect Geir to be a student at the vocational school where Jørgen works as an electrician. He definitely does not expect to be drawn to Geir time and again, to want things that will never be possible for two people with more obstacles between them than can ever be overcome.

Review: This was a wonderful book on so many levels. I don’t know how it should be classified, but I guess New Adult would be best as the characters are NA, but the themes of the book are very dark and anyone with triggers for multiple types of child and sexual abuse should not read this book. I personally felt so much pain for the characters that it was a difficult book to read, but there was such a hopeful undercurrent that flowed beneath the text I just had to keep turning the pages.

This book is a journey into the lives of two young men, one still a high school student and the other just a few years out. We learn about them as they meet and develop a friendship, and as they find comfort and companionship with each other. An attraction is there but they are not ready to act on it. Jorgen and Geir have growing up to do before they are ready to love and commit to one another, but they are aware of this and set themselves limits—friends first. This feels real to the reader and helps to set the tone for the progress of the story. I liked the way the author set the book up into several parts: each stage of the story was layered carefully so as to not overwhelm the reader with the details of the characters; rather, letting us learn about them and digest the information so each page took us forward with Jorgen and Geir at a comfortable pace.

One of the aspects of the book that I really enjoyed was the location. More Than Anything is set in Norway, and the author is able to give the reader a sense of the country, its landscape and the lifestyle enjoyed there, while creating a colorful backdrop to the characters. Geir’s father works on one of the North Sea oil rigs, flying in and out to the rig via helicopter on rotation, and this compliments the Nordic flavor of the book whilst underscoring the feelings of loneliness Geir suffers from. The language in the story also emphasises the setting, with characters names and descriptions of homes, as well as the different names for things that the characters either eat or see. I found this to be very consistent throughout the book, and it made for a smooth read with an added depth due to this.

Even though there is such a horrible amount of abuse to read about, it is over. The healing and recovery from the abuse is the focus of the story, and we travel through the book with a sense of hope that remains constant. All of the growth for the characters we are so invested in is positive. Each page brings us closer to happiness, and the ending is fitting for the tone of the whole story. We are left with a feeling of pleasure and a sense of happiness. I would call it a HFN with more happy to come.