Customer Reviews

Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

N.B. Really 4 1/2 stars

I'll admit it - the only reason I wanted to read this book was because the title sounded cool, and I liked the author's name, Mattox. But make no mistake, this book was powerful. It's also not about what you think it's about; the story is not the story you expect it to be.

It starts off when Cesar, an L.A. gang member, moves to small town Unalakleet, Alaska with his mom, a native Eskimo, when his brother is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. When he arrives, he befriends his cousin, Go-Boy, and their relationship, along with Unalakleet, or rather, Unk, changes his life. One might even say it saves his life. And maybe it saves Go's life, too.

Go-Boy and Cesar are such well-developed, emotionally real characters that I wouldn't be surprised if I ran into them if I ever find myself in Unalakleet. The idea that the descriptions and reactions and emotions of these two people without them actually existing is just baffling to me. Even the lesser characters, some of whom we only saw once or twice, were so real, as were their struggles. I've read that some find these characters flat and undeveloped, but I disagree. I just found them REAL.

I think when it boils down to it, Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same is the story of the importance of being loved, of feeling needed, of feeling connected to other people. It is also the story of hope. Roesch gets the feeling of living in a small, disconnected town down to a T, and each of the characters represents some different aspect of what it must be like. Go-Boy with his craziness and his idealism, Cesar's mom with her desire to be Native, Cesar with his desire to fit in, Kiana with her NEED to get out,. . . It moved me in such a way that I find myself desperately wanting to move to a small town like Unk, to live the life that I experienced so vividly through this book.

It's hard to really explain why, but there was something about this book that jumped out at me and screamed "Live life to the fullest! Be grateful for every moment!" Normally, I can tell if the feeling a book gives me is the feeling intended by the author, but in this one I really just can't. And that's a good thing here. Let people take whatever positive message they choose from it.

Mattox Roesch's debut novel is gripping and enchanting, and any reader will without a doubt find themselves wildly caught up in the emotions and the follies of all of the characters. This book is an extremely enjoyable read that comes highly recommended by Brizmus Blogs Books!

Transplanted from LA to Alaska is a heck of a shift. "Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same" is the story of young Cesar, a young man who has embraced urban culture when his mother moves them to Alaska in a small village where she grew up. A fish out of water, Cesar has to make his way in life and into adulthood in a place that's totally alien to him. "Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same" is a charming and unique coming of age tale, well composed and a worthwhile read.

This book attracted me mostly due to its name-- somehow, the book description didn't give me an idea of what to expect.

(I much prefer the description on <a href="[...]to the one that is here and on Amazon).

Same-same is as quirky as the name would lead you to expect- quirky without being either cute or light. The focus was on character-- mostly that of Cesar.

Cesar was on a bad path in LA, one likely to end like that of his brother, who is in jail because of his role in a gang shooting. Cesar has already found himself involved in one truly terrible crime.

Moving to Alaska with his mother gives him a new start, just not the one he's looking for. He's got a plan to move back to LA and move in with his dad. Unfortunately, his father is most notable in this story for his absence.

Luckily for all involved, Cesar meets up with his local cousin, Go-boy. The reader as well as the characters in the book wonder whether Go-boy is crazy. Certainly, the letters he writes to Yoko Ono are crazy. The signs he puts up around town are pretty crazy. On the other hand, there seems to be a method to his madness.

My favorite character was Kiana, Cesar's girlfriend and Go-boy's cousin. She's a teenage math genius who doesn't always make good personal choices. I'd love to know what happens to her down the road.

The books looks at issues of character and of responsibility, questions of how one decision (or non-decision) can change a life. It's thought provoking while being funny and readable.

It was something of a struggle just to finish this book, but since I "won" the book in a giveaway I felt obligated to read it. The writing is qood, and the book started out well, with an interesting premise of a 17 year-old gang member relocating from Los Angeles with his divorced mother to the tiny village of Unalakleet, Alaska, on the Norton Sound. The narrator/protagonist, Cesar, presented as a kind of bi-racial Holden Caulfield, initially can't wait to get back to L.A., but his cousin, the strangely spiritual Go-Boy, bets him he will stay in Alaska, in "Unk," where Cesar's mother, a Native American, grew up. While Cesar's is the one and only point-of-view throughout the book, the enigmatic Go-Boy is, for the most part, the focus of the story. As things unfold, the reader is soon made aware that Go-boy is very probably manic-depressive (bipolar), yet his strangely attractive take on spiritual things, beginning with his homemade tatoo of a female "Eskimo Jesus" and progressing toward his theory that there is a world-wide conspiracy of doing good underway. Perhaps this book needed an omniscient point-of-view, because there are simply too many things going on here for a one-sided first-person narrative to do the story justice. The characters of Valerie, Kiana, Cesar's mother, and various other key characters tend to remain a bit too flat and undeveloped. I kept looking for some sort of symbolism or special significance in things like White Alice, who/which is first introduced as a myth about an Eskimo woman who "saw little people." But, as it turns out, White Alice is really a cover name for a government aircraft control and warning system which once had stations scattered across the arctic. Properly translated "White" simply means the the frozen north, while AL.I.C.E. means ALaska Integrated Communications & Electornics. But even after you figure this out, you're not quite sure why Roesch included it into his story, except perhaps because there was once a White Alice base just outside Unalakleet. That element was a dead end to me, completely unnecessary. And there was the "unknown woman" who appeared suddenly one night in the village - what was that all about? And Go-Boy himself, who seemed at times a kind of John the Baptist figure who is "preparing the way" remains instead an enigma, or maybe just a screwed-up guy who has visions and grandiose ideas and plans. Or maybe he's meant to be a Christ figure, but then he ends up questioning the whole idea of Christianity. so that shoots that theory. There are plenty of interesting and promising elements here - young lovers, attempted suicides, alcoholism and child abuse, an extremely isolated village society, the closeness of extended families. There is a whole slurry of interesting plot twists here, but, in the end it doesn't all come together to make any particular sense. Of course life often doesn't make sense, I know. There is a kind of redeption, I suppose, for Cesar himself, who does decide to stay; but Go-boy, the other central character, just seems to be kind of a sad mess by story's end. And it did seem to me at times that this story would never end. By the time I finished it, I was just glad it was over.

I just purchased this book and am anxiously awaiting it in the mail.

Best wishes on your book tour Matt.