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A grandfather on the edge of death decides to unleash stories from a life richly lived on an unsuspecting grandson.

I have often pondered how much I have missed out on by not knowing about the portion of my grandparents� and parents� lives lived outside of my existence. Of course, we have these amazing shared memories but what about all the rest, the good stuff that most people choose to not share with just anybody. Those moments that made us and define who we are years after they have passed. I could ask and have, but the scraps they give are those that have been told a million times before and happen to be safe for general consumption. I find myself guilty of the same crime with my own children. Answering questions with a few words summarizing the story followed by a yada yada yada that glosses over all the intimate details that matter most.

I wanted to love this book but couldn’t for two reasons, the writing style and the ending. (Also there was one minor detail that I found quite irritating, but I am going to leave it out of this review because it isn’t mentioned in the synopsis and I don't feel like dicking around with a spoiler tag.) The writing was heavy on obscure word usage and I’m not the type of reader that wants to have a vocab lesson with their reading. A few here and there and I am intrigued, sprinkling every other sentence with them and I am skipping past them. The ending left a lot to be desired because the story had a build-up feel to it that it couldn't deliver on. Let me rephrase that, the build-up was delivered right before the end but it really wasn't anything amazing. That left the ending just sitting there with nothing left to really satisfy the reader with.

I did thoroughly enjoy the grandfather’s stories from his past and that alone was worth the time spent reading this book.