The Ending Sucked!

This is what has been keeping me up at night, and waking me up early in the morning. Another Neil Peart book. This one, in contrast to The Masked Rider, had much more of an emotional undercurrent (to be expected, since this was his way of healing from the loss of his family).

Again, he offers great observations and lyrical prose as he describes the terrain - external as well as internal. It was the ending that disappointed me, as I finished up at 5:30 this morning. 

Peart loses his only child and his wife of 22 years within a 10-month period. Totally harsh. So to help him cope, he hits the road on his motorcycle. He takes us with him through the stages of grief, and the book wraps up around the 2-year anniversary of his wife's passing.

With such a deep thinker, I just assumed that he would turn a corner emotionally, and heal himself from the inside out. But no - it was a girl that pushed him around that proverbial corner. While I am glad that he found someone - no one should be alone if they don't want to be - it just fell flat that he had to find a new love to finish up "on the healing road." I'd like to ask him what he thinks about the previously rejected, "Everything happens for a reason."

My existential disappointment shall not keep me from his other 2 books, and I will start reading Traveling Music real soon. I feel like I have actually been somewhere after I finish a Peart book, and for a homebody like me, that's saying something!