First of all, I would like to give heartfelt thanks to Glen Sobey for providing me with a digital review copy to read this book. My review is honest, unbiased, and voluntary.
Having previously read the first book by glen, 'War Blog', I was keenly waiting for his next book. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined this book to leave me emotionally and physically drained. At first, it was difficult for me to connect with the main character since I come from a completely different background and cultural setup. But having interacted with Glen I was able to see and understand the context better. The story is not unfamiliar or unknown, but its the treatment that sets it apart. Glen Sobey's book will leave you crying, sobbing inconsolably, laughing, smiling, and endless other emotions. It's an emotional roller coaster that will leave you teary-eyed and numb for a while.
Plot: The book is about a young girl, Harper Lyons, who like any typical teenager wants to be part of the in-crowd. So, to be part of the crowd she does things which she otherwise would not. She ends up with drug abuse, drinking, boys, unprotected sex, and the list goes on. The situation at home is no different, growing up in a strict God-fearing family, Harper finds it difficult to communicate with either of her parents. Her only fault is that she grew up too soon and had no one to guide her or correct her with love. The distance between her and her parents augment to such an extent that she blindly lands into the arms of an older boyfriend, Zachary. He is conniving, manipulative and good for nothing, who happens to trap innocent girls into drugs and misuse their situation by landing them in situations that he can make use of like blackmailing them into submission for sex and drugs. It is sad to see Harper tear herself away from her family once she realizes she is with a child. She cannot reach out to her parents, who also happen to wish their hands off her before she becomes a bad influence on her siblings. The family dynamics will leave you scarred, and thinking as to why as parents we often stop listening to our kids and pay attention selectively.
Harper reaches out to her estranged grandfather who helps her find her reason to live. However, Harper is unaware that her Grandfather, Cooper has Alzheimer’s disease and is still coming to terms with that. Cooper too has a strained relationship with his wife and son, Greg(Harper's father). Greg blames Cooper for the death of his sister Heather by drug abuse, wherein Greg was more to blame. The ensuing years saw them drift apart and Cooper ended up alone in Alaska. The rest of the story will have you spellbound with scenic landscapes and raw human emotions which hit you in the gut, leaving you breathless and at times snot-nosed. The journey of Harper and Cooper is awe-inspiring and also heartwarming. The novel takes you on their journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. Cooper teaches you many life lessons that may seem trivial but on second thought you will realize its mettle.
I found myself connecting with some part of every character, which made the book all the more special for me. I connected with Harper when she felt lonely and isolated, unable to connect with her parents. She is labeled and written off and becomes synonymous for mistakes. The parents fail to see the daughter who wants to let go of her mistakes and start fresh. But they assume her to be guilty, which leads her to further alienation from her family.
I took a long time to read the book because many scenes were like reliving my pain. It is definitely a page-turner, that will feel like a roller coaster ride of emotions. I foolishly wished for Cooper to recover even though I knew that people suffering from Alzheimer's never recover. This book represents Alzheimer’s and the other related issues accurately and in an honest, way. A lot of topics have been discussed in the book; dementia, drug abuse, drinking issues, peer pressure, family issues, family fragmentation, religion, the concept of god and more have been dealt with so well. The descriptions of the Alaskan terrain are so real that while reading you can see in your mind's eye the various landscapes.
The one thing I am taking away from the book is the byline, is said by Cooper. The words will find a keeper in all who have faced hardships and have risen from ashes, stronger. The line is powerful and it symbolizes the very spirit of the book. The by-line of “No fences in Alaska sweetheart, “Never let them build one around you” will stay with you forever. Though listed as YA, I personally feel that the book is suitable even for adults and everyone would enjoy the journey of Harper and Cooper.
Warning: Carry a box of tissues when you sit to read. ( )

A broken family filled with anger and addiction is a tough one to navigate, especially when you haven’t been given a guide book!
Harper is a strong willed and teen who has been paying the price of her aunt’s mistakes and a conviction from her father before she barely had a chance. She’s gotten mixed up in things too old for her as a replacement for the parental love and acceptance that she has been denied. Her hope is that her grandfather in Alaska can help her, even though he is dealing with his own guilt of the past and bleak outlook of his future.
The plot is engrossing, even though the characters often aggravate with their pettiness, and you find yourself pulling for the underdog. This is a story of how to be human, and how one girl is struggling to find her true self in the midst of chaos. Well done.
*I received an arc from the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review ( )

Their worlds are about to come crashing down...
At sixteen years old, Harper Lyon's life is spinning out of control. She threatens her parents with suicide unless she can meet her drug-dealing boyfriend, a college student who doesn't know she's pregnant. Cooper Lyons, her estranged grandfather, lives in rural Alaska with only his dog and cat for company. He has just been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, and he doesn't plan on letting the disease run its course. Harper needs to escape her parents and decide what to do about the baby. She and her grandpa are worlds apart, but they may be exactly what the other needs. When Harper calls her grandfather, he welcomes the opportunity to help her and redeem his previous failure with his daughter Heather, who died from a drug overdose years ago.
Can they save each other?

This was a light, easy read. It was a bit cheesy and cliche at points, but overall a good novel.

*Book received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review* ( )

This book absolutely kept me hooked - I read it through in one day. The characters were strong and believable and that included some of the more minor characters like her mother and her sister where the author is careful to give enough detail to explain their motivations and their history. The descriptions of Alaska were also awe inspiring and really made me want to plan a trip one day. (Not so much for Texas - cochroaches - urgh!) I feel sure the author has personally experienced the mountains, the moose and probably the bears!

Saying that I did have some reservations. There is a strong theme of Christianity in this book which runs alongside issues such as drugs and teenage pregnancy. Naturally the protagonist feels a conflict when she considers abortion but I was very surprised that a girl in her situation would change her mind and I did wonder whether the author had made this decision because of their own beliefs. Equally, you could argue that almost losing the baby and also having a stable family environment which would help her raise the baby helped her make that (extremely difficult) decision. However I was absolutely not convinced by the grandfather, Cooper, changing his lifelong atheist beliefs and adopting the power of prayer; that felt odd and contrived. I am glad that Gabriel, the boyfriend, was allowed to retain his atheist beliefs!

I found the ending where the baby's father appears rather unrealistic; the whole situation was contrived - clearly the only reason she mentions her pregnancy on stage is to engineer this ending to clear up all of the loose ends. (This declaration of pregnancy felt very "off" to me as I read it but once I reached the ending I understood why it had been used). Saying that, the author does explain Zachary's extreme behaviour by re-listing her threats towards him, and adding messages which haven't been received. I don't think this was a necessary element though - he is completely off stage by this point and could have remained so. ( )

Despite myself having come of age a long time ago, I still enjoy a good coming-of age novel and usually read several of them a year. And that is precisely what drew me to Glen Sobey’s No Fences in Alaska. This one in particular, though, appealed to me because one of its two central characters, Cooper, is a man in his sixties who is facing a rapidly worsening case of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Even better, Harper, the novel’s other main character is a sixteen-year-old girl in so much trouble at home in Texas that Grandpa Cooper, whom she has not seen in ten years, is her best and last chance at salvaging something positive from her life before it is forever too late.

Harper lives in San Antonio and Cooper lives in a remote area of Alaska. The two have not seen each other since Harper was six years old because Greg, her father, blames Cooper for everything that has ever gone wrong in his own life – and plenty has gone wrong. Unbeknownst to Harper, she’s probably a lot more like her grandfather than she is her father, and that’s a big reason that her father gets along as poorly with her as he does with his old man. But Harper, perhaps because she so deeply craves the love she is not getting from her father, is herself a big part of the problem - if her father won’t show her his love, she will find it elsewhere. Greg demands a conservative Christian lifestyle under his roof, and Harper adamantly refuses to live that way. Instead, she takes great delight in dressing provocatively, using hard drugs, and sleeping with her college-age boyfriend at every opportunity.

Most people living Harper’s lifestyle are destined to bottom out at some point, some sooner than others. Harper is no exception, but the girl is smart enough to grab at the only lifeline available to her when it happens, her estranged grandfather. Cooper, who has begun contemplating how his own life is destined to end in a whimper rather than a bang, jumps at the unexpected opportunity to do some good for his family before he forgets he even has one. And that’s where the rest of the story begins, because after Harper joins Cooper in Alaska they manage more than once, and in more than one sense, to save each other’s lives.

Bottom Line: No Fences in Alaska is a touching story in which the author pulls no punches. What Harper goes through in Texas is brutal, if not uncommon, and few of his characters are portrayed as being completely innocent of helping to cause what happens to this family. As a reader, my only quibble with the novel is the quick and drastic swing in temperament that the author demands of his key characters. I found it difficult to believe, for instance, that such an uptight family, one that failed to master one-on-one communication for a decade, could so rapidly become a family that joked openly about their various sex lives around the communal dinner table. There’s a lot to like about No Fences in Alaska, though, so don’t let that observation scare you away. Ultimately, this is a very satisfying novel. ( )