The Great Alone

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Leni is now 25, about to graduate with a degree in visual arts, to be a photographer. MJ is doing well. They find out Cora has stage 4 lung cancer. Realizing she's dying, Cora tells Leni that she's going to just confess to the murder so that Leni can be free to resume her life in Alaska. Cora passes away. How do you think this makes Leni feel? Do you think Cora confides in her too much, or does this help to draw them closer together? Ernt becomes more volatile as he grows closer to Mad Earle, swapping conspiracy theories and preparing for armageddon.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past. Cadden, Mary; Schnaars, Christopher (January 5, 2019). "Michelle Obama's 'Becoming' is USA TODAY's No. 1 book of 2018. See the others in top 100". USA TODAY . Retrieved March 13, 2021. This novel shows a place on the brink of change. Tom Walker believes that progress and more development is key, whereas people like Ernt doesn’t want anything to change. Why do you think people are so resistant to change? Do you believe this also applies to certain communities today?The Great Alone is a semiautobiographical novel written by American author Kristin Hannah published by St. Martin's Press in 2018. The story follows the Allbright family's move to the Alaskan wilderness and the ensuing challenges they face there. Leni is now 17. She is a good hunter now. Her father has abided by the rules, and each winter after Thanksgiving he leaves to work on the pipeline. Times has changed and Kaneq is now a larger city where tourists occasionally come by. Leni suddenly saw how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst? Was it better not to hope at all, to prepare?’ (p.121) In 1974, when thirteen-year-old Leni Allbright's volatile, unpredictable father, Ernt, a former POW, loses another job, he makes an impulsive, desperate decision: he will move the family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the land in a spectacular wilderness.

Two types of people come to Alaska, people who are running to something or running away from something. With no police station and no telephone service, Alaska gives new meaning to the word...Remote. How did the building of Ernt’s wall affect you as a reader? As he was building it, what did you think was going to happen? Did you think someone was going to kill Ernt? Who did you think the killer would be? Who did you want it to be? In the meantime, Leni, Cora, and Ernt learn to live in Alaska. Ernt teaches his wife and daughter how to shoot and fish, and other members of the Kaneq community teach the family how to garden and save food for the winter. Though Ernt initially feels better in Kaneq, his rage begins to grow. He spends a lot of time with Earl Harlan, Bo’s father. Together, the two drink heavily and complain about the downfall of civilization. Both are convinced that a war will erupt soon, and people will come to take their land. Nearly everyone else thinks their claims are ridiculous but find the men themselves to be concerning. The day of Geneva’s funeral, Ernt is in a particularly nasty mood and when the Allbrights arrive home, he drags Cora inside and hits her twice in the face in front of Leni. Leni always knew that her parents argued, but this is the first time she witnesses physical abuse. In this latest from Hannah, the landscape is hard and bleak but our young heroine learns to accept it and discover her true self...fans will appreciate the astuteness of the story and the unbreakable connection between mother and child." — Library Journal

But then her dad comes home with his “Big Idea” smile. A friend who died in the war left him some property in Alaska. Her father is ecstatic. It’s a place where they can live a decent life…away from all of the madness. A simple life on land that they can live off…grow their own vegetables, hunt, and be free.