So Long, Chester Wheeler - Catherine Ryan Hyde

AUTHOR: Catherine Ryan Hyde

GENRE: Contemporary Drama, Coming-of-age.

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: The book was decent. But I didn’t connect with it as much as I had wanted to. Contained no surprises. Mostly predictable. Repetitive ending/epilogue. Not the author’s best work, by far.

Story Synopsis:

Twenty-four-year-old Lewis lives next door to the ‘most irritating man in the world’, Chester Wheeler. Chester is a senior citizen battling terminal cancer, but this doesn’t make him likeable. However, when Lewis loses his job and the only offer available to him is to provide end-of-life care to Chester, Lewis has no choice but to accept it. Chester’s final wish is to drive to Arizona (they live in Buffalo) to meet his ex-wife after thirty-two years. Thus begins a road trip that will prove life-changing to both of them in myriad ways.

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Lewis.

Where the story worked for me:

✔ Very fast-paced despite a relaxed plot.

✔ Quite a few thought-provoking quotes.

✔ Some funny scenes, especially in the conversations between Lewis and Chester.

✔ The parts about a caregiver’s role in a dying patient’s life were beautifully written.

✔ Covers nice themes such as forgiveness, relationships, heartbreaks, and emotional connections.

✔ As a coming-of-age story, the book works pretty well. Though Chester is almost seventy, the coming-of-age aspect is applicable as much to him as to Lewis. I love how the author didn’t turn Chester goody-goody just for the sake of it. He remains a grump, though to a toned-down degree.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

❌ Flat characters despite the potential. Lewis is a software programmer who doesn’t even try searching any job once he is roped in to take care of Chester. If he were so unhappy, he surely would have at least looked for options online, no matter how bad the economy. Similarly, Chester’s daughter Ellie complained to Lewis that she doesn’t have funds for a fulltime caregiver. But the way she spends during the rest of the story contradicts her original claim.

❌ For some reason, I just didn’t feel emotionally connected neither to the plot nor to the characters. Chester was anyway tough to like because of his brashness and extreme homophobia, but Lewis should have generated a greater empathy. His change in thinking was too easy to be believable. He was like a football who rolled wherever life kicked him – no will of his own.

❌ I know such books are clichéd but this one took the cake. Not a single surprise throughout the 300 pages.

❌ The epilogue is needlessly extended and gives off déjà vu vibes. You’ll know why if you read it.

❌ Chester is a homophobe, so there are some triggering sentences in his dialogues against Lewis, who is gay. The homophobic elements feel way over the top, though this could be attributed to Chester, who is vehement in his hatred.

❌ The writing is somewhat repetitive. A part of this could be because of the first person narration of Lewis, who seems overly fond of adverbs and redundancies.

Overall, it is a decent story about the coming-of-age of a gay man in his early twenties and a dying curmudgeonly homophobe in his late sixties. But there was nothing memorable in the book. I read it, I liked it enough, I will forget it soon.

I love this author but this isn’t her best work, at least for me. I know she is capable of delivering much better. At the same time, do note that this is a somewhat outlier review. Most of my friends have adored this book. So if you do give it a try, I hope you love it far more than I did. 

My thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the DRC of “So Long, Chester Wheeler”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.