Lights Along the Interstate by Adam Fike - An appropriate title for such a trip! 4/5

    Today, I am reviewing the urban fantasy novella Lights Along the Interstate by Adam Fike. This book flashes between several different points of view as a bus driver collects passengers on his route...but the passengers are lost souls, or those who work with them. Each vignette gives insight into the characters and their connections.

I give this book a 4/5. Here is my breakdown.

Characters: 5/5. This is certainly the strongest point of this novella. Fike ties together a myriad of characters from all walks of life, each in a different situation. None of these situations are simple or easy to navigate, with murder, incidental death, or simple betrayal rife among the rest. The characters are engaging and interesting, and the empathy developed for each one is real and powerful. Well done.

Plot/Storyline: 4/5. I very much enjoyed the storyline here, the idea of this "divine" bus driver traveling on his route to find lost souls. He certainly knows more than he lets on and does his best to nudge things in better ways, despite being a long-standing servant of a system that doesn't seem particularly merciful. The story is creative, intriguing, and worth a reader's time.

Flow: 3/5.  Fike has made a deliberate choice with his writing technique here, and it mostly worked for me. Not only do we jump through multiple characters' perspectives, the style is more jittery and less conventional than I'm used to. It makes the narrative a bit harder to follow at times, but I applaud the courage and the creativity behind the technique. It's certainly more literary and unconventional than most!

Spelling/Grammar: 4.5/5. I think I noticed one typographical error, maybe two. Insignificant issue.

Overall: 4/5. Lights Along the Interstate is an exercise is real-world philosophy wrapped up in novella form, giving readers peeks into the world around us and the prices we pay for decisions...and how, sometimes, others end up making those decisions for us because we didn't have the information at the time, like how a bystander can be shot at a diner just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It took a bit of effort to read, but Fike made it worth my time.

Find Lights Along the Interstate on Amazon.

If you liked my review, check out my books over at my main site: www.jasonpatrickcrawford.com/bookstore.html

Thanks as always, and keep reading!