In a Nutshell Review - The Surprised Me Edition

---

Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
Published by ECCO on May 13, 2025
Age/Genres: Adult, Fiction
Rating: 
Goodreads

An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with each new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.

Mad had been living a quiet life until Rube, a man claiming to be her brother invited her to find their other siblings and reunite with the father she had not seen in decades. This was one crazy roadtrip with big results.

I have read Wilson before, so I knew to expect a zany tale that was packed with humor and lots of heart but this was by far my favorite. My mind was blown by the whole concept of this man that would have a family, leave them, and reinvent himself, but I loved the friendship and bond formed between his left-behind children. They spanned quite an age range, but quickly took to each other. It was interesting to see how their father impacted them in positive and negative ways, and Wilson did a beautiful job exploring that as well as the complicated family dynamics at play here.

In the end, this was a quirky sibling story with lots of humor and heart which made me laugh and smile in equal parts.

---

Zorrie by Laird Hunt
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing on February 9, 2021
Age/Genres: Adult, Fiction
Rating: 
Goodreads

As a girl, Zorrie Underwood's modest and hardscrabble home county was the only constant in her young life. After losing both her parents to diphtheria, Zorrie moved in with her aunt, whose own death orphaned Zorrie all over again, casting her off into the perilous realities and sublime landscapes of rural, Depression-era Indiana. Drifting west, Zorrie survived on odd jobs, sleeping in barns and under the stars, before finding a position at a radium processing plant. At the end of each day, the girls at her factory glowed from the radioactive material.

But when Indiana calls Zorrie home, she finally finds the love and community that have eluded her in the small town of Hillisburg. And yet, even as she tries to build a new life, Zorrie discovers that her trials have only begun.

Spanning an entire lifetime, a life convulsed and transformed by the events of the 20th century, Laird Hunt's extraordinary novel offers a profound and intimate portrait of the dreams that propel one tenacious woman onward and the losses that she cannot outrun. Set against a harsh, gorgeous, quintessentially American landscape, this is a deeply empathetic and poetic novel that belongs on a shelf with the classics of Willa Cather, Marilynne Robinson, and Elizabeth Strout.

From prize-winning, acclaimed author Laird Hunt, a poignant novel about a woman searching for her place in the world and finding it in the daily rhythms of life in rural Indiana.

Zorrie was a survivor who faced many challenges over her lifetime, and it was one incredible life she made. 

I picked this book for a reading challenge prompt and liked it a lot more than I expected. I adore stories that span so many years, and I got to spend so many with Zorrie as she fought to survive and eke out a life. She faced a huge loss at such a young age, but the thing that pulled me in was her spirit and resilience. I have to admit, I was going batty with the way they were handling radioactive materials when she was painting the clock faces, but being a Ghost Girl was part of her tale. I also liked all the connections she made along the way and found many parts of this story quite moving. As someone who like neat and tidy endings, I wanted more there, but I overall enjoyed spending a lifetime with Zorrie.

Last roadtrip you took?
Let us know in the comments!