The Names

Storyline: 4 Stars

I did not know much about The Names before reading it. I read the book for book club, and I did not have many expectations going into the book. As a whole, I enjoyed the book. I think the concept of different life paths because of a difference in the name of a child was interesting. It was a concept that was new, and it was something different which I appreciated.

I think the part that was somewhat misleading was that the person’s life with the different names really was not impacted by the name itself, but more so by his parents’ reactions to the names. It more so showed how a name impacted the people around versus the main character. Also, the situation of the main character was very different than most. I doubt that most people’s lives would be that drastically impacted by a name compared to him.

I think it was an interesting take on the “nature” versus “nurture” debate. It was an interesting viewpoint. I liked the book overall.

Parental Guidance: 75% Recommend

I would recommend this book 75% of the time. For the most part there was not anything inappropriate, but there was a rainbow character and domestic violence. The domestic violence was not described in great detail, but there was enough of it to be disturbing. The rainbow character also did not do anything inappropriate throughout the book so it was not much of a concern.

Real Book Chat

Spoilers Ahead

My biggest wondering – Bear/Julian/Gordon has to be allergic to wasps in every situation, right? His DNA would be the same. It makes me wonder what would happen if he was stung in any of the other life paths that could have happened. I think the bee was an interesting way to end Bear’s story because he ultimately died from something that was in his nature, not because of how he had been nurtured. I was half expecting Julian and Gordon to die the same way in the other endings, and I’m not sure if it was better or worse off for the book that they did not.

I went back and forth about which perspective I liked the best. Bear was okay, but he was sort of selfish, especially towards Lily when they were older. Since Bear was the only one to die from a wasp, I did not love that ending. It almost felt like it was a random idea that the author had, instead of trying to show that in each scenario he was still the same person allergic to wasps. I think that would have been more interesting — seeing how each person reacted to getting stung by a wasp, if they would have been saved because of the people they surrounded themselves with, etc.

I liked Julian a lot until the last section because it seemed very out of character for him to be parted from Orla and his children. I’m happy that they were back together, but it did not seem like Julian’s character to be parted from his wife for so long.

Gordon bothered me so much when he was younger, being horrible to his mom. Plus he was a jerk and selfish. I did appreciate his character arc and how he was able to save his mother in the end. I did not love his storyline because of the situation with his mom, but I understand why it was there.