{"id":5031,"date":"2025-12-04T10:33:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5031"},"modified":"2025-12-04T10:33:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:33:43","slug":"book-review-ogallala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5031","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Ogallala"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ogallala<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Eric Eichhorn<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Literary Fiction<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9798891328747<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 258 pages<\/p>\n

Publisher:<\/strong> Atmosphere Press<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Grace Okubo<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>A darkly funny road trip into the quiet collapse of a man who should have stayed home<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What trouble we\u2019d save ourselves if we just enjoyed the moments we have without seeking answers to every little question\u2014especially from the distant past.<\/p>\n

In Ogallala<\/em>, Bennett does not leave the past alone. When his college sweetheart, Jenn, calls him out of the blue, he packs up an \u201cadventure box,\u201d convinced he can relive some of the passion of his youth and finally get closure on what went wrong between them.<\/p>\n

Without asking questions, he drives from New York to Michigan. Jenn then asks him to drive her daughter Zoe\u2014a spirited but struggling MMA fighter\u2014and her trainer Hector all the way to Utah for an important match. Bennett, again, does not ask questions. Along the way, Hector\u2019s friend Hank and his nephew Alvin join the trip, leading them to a detour in Ogallala, Nebraska, where everything begins to unravel.<\/p>\n

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Zoe, who has a tense relationship with her mother and misses her estranged father, doubts her own abilities as a fighter. Jenn, surrounded by questionable company, seems blind, or perhaps indifferent to the danger around her daughter. As the journey unfolds, Bennett\u2019s desire to relive his youth clashes with the unsettling realities he encounters on the road. His choices\u2014what he sees, what he ignores, and what he does not report\u2014mark the start of his moral unraveling.<\/p>\n

Ogallala<\/em> succeeds in quietly numbing you to its descent. At first, Bennett\u2019s behavior is amusing. I kept wondering how far this 51-year-old man would go, and to what depths of silliness he\u2019d sink, to win back a night with his long-lost lover. Then the tone shifts, and I watch a man who knows the right thing to do but chooses convenience instead. Bennett\u2019s transformation\u2014from a nostalgic fool to a reluctant participant in crime\u2014is both believable and disquieting. Zoe is another standout: witty, insecure, and aching for attention in ways she can\u2019t articulate. Even Jenn, frustratingly passive, adds to the realism of the story, her contradictions mirroring the quiet moral failures that ripple through the book.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one lingering gap, it\u2019s Jenn\u2019s involvement. Her awareness of the dangers surrounding Hector and Hank never quite translates into meaningful action, leaving her character somewhat suspended between ignorance and complicity. Yet, paradoxically, this absence of agency works. It sharpens the focus on Bennett\u2019s transformation. Her inaction throws his moral descent into sharper relief. There\u2019s real nuance here.<\/p>\n

Ogallala<\/em> is funny, perplexing, and peppered with sad surprises. It begins with nostalgia and heads toward somewhere far darker, exploring how small compromises can turn the ordinary into the criminal. It\u2019s a story that asks how much we\u2019re willing to ignore for comfort or love. Readers who enjoy character-driven fiction with a psychological edge will find this novel riveting.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Grace Okubo\u2019s book review of Ogallala <\/em>by Eric Eichhorn! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: Ogallala<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ogallala by Eric Eichhorn Genre: Literary Fiction ISBN: 9798891328747 Print Length: 258 pages Publisher: Atmosphere Press Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Grace Okubo A darkly funny road trip into the quiet collapse of a man who should have stayed home What trouble we\u2019d save ourselves if we just enjoyed the moments we have without seeking answers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}