Book Review: Take Me With You

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of the well-known inspirational book, Pay It Forward (which I encountered first in movie form, starring Helen Hunt). I also enjoyed her novel, The Language of Hoofbeats, several years ago. She has a wonderful ability to create endearing characters with believable problems. Moreover, her books inspire the reader to reach for greater things and to seek redemption in the most difficult aspects of life.

Take Me With You, tells the unexpected account of a worn down high school teacher on a trek to Yellowstone to deposit the ashes of his teenaged son. When August's RV breaks down, he is heartbroken at the thought of being unable to accomplish this mission. Then, the mechanic offers a strange compromise. He will make all the necessary repairs for free if August will take his two young sons along with him on the RV trip to Yellowstone for the summer. The two men's unique problems converge and August is thrust into a new way of living and forced to look at his son's death through new eyes.

The story hits on numerous intense problems: addiction, abandonment, guilt, blame, and forgiveness (both internal and external). The characters pull at your heart strings and suck you into the story fully. As August begins to share his own battles with grief and loss, the two boys slowly open up and find a safety they've never known before. The older son, who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the younger son, who withdraws into himself, both blossom under August's tender care. You can't help putting yourself in the shoes of the characters. Would you take on a stranger's children for a cross-country trip? Would you let someone unexpected into your pain? How often do we miss opportunities for redemption because we are unwilling to extend trust to another individual? Take Me With You is a tender tale of the transformative power of trust and love.