Review: The Things We'll Never Have
Hilary Hauck
387 pages
Olive Rose Press (2023)
Read this if you like: historical fiction, unique POVs, intrigue-driven plots
tl;dr summary: Jilted British woman travels to Italy to find her suddenly departed lover, instead finds lies (and herself, natch)
While I’m generally a broad reader, I do have a type, and that type tends strongly toward the speculative, or at least the weird. And, while I’m not necessarily opposed to historical fiction, it’s generally not what I’m likely to pick up if I’m perusing a bookstore shelf. I’m also usually fairly averse to stories driven primarily by a romantic storyline—I’m fine with them being there, I just usually prefer something else to be the main thread.
And, I’ll admit, I did roll my eyes and groan a small amount when the book started off—but I was quickly pulled into the narrative, and found myself completely immersed in and invested in the story throughout despite my initial misgivings. One big reason for this, I think, is that the romantic relationship ends up functioning more as a catalyst than the meat of the story. The gist of the plot is that Everleigh goes to a small town in Italy to find her fiance, Gualtiero, after he suddenly disappears. When she gets there, she learns that, not only is her fiance not in the town, but he’s not actually Gualtiero—he’s been using a fake name the entire time they’ve known each other. Everleigh learns this fairly early in the book. The rest of the plot is her working with Marta and Olivia, two residents of the town, to learn who her fiance really is and where he’s gone. This shifts the energy, making it read more like a mystery than a romance or chick lit book (which, for my tastes, is very much a good thing).
Another reason I think I was so drawn to this book is that it doesn’t tell its story in a traditional, straightforward way. There are three narrators: Everleigh, Olivia, and Marta, who tell the story between them in interlocking first-person narratives. This was a risky move, certainly, but an effective way to tell this particular story. The first-person POVs allow for a depth of emotion and intimacy that would be lost in third person, while the varying narrators is useful for dropping clues for the reader, giving them knowledge only select characters are privy to.
While Everleigh is arguably the main character of the three, I personally found myself the most interested in Olivia’s. Olivia has been blind since she was two years old, meaning she has no memories of being sighted and no frame of reference for visual details. That gives her first-person segments a very unique feel, one that relies entirely on other senses to build her surroundings.
If I have one quibble with The Things We’ll Never Have, it’s the short section lengths, some of which are as short as a single page. This is a trend I’ve noticed in other recent novels, too, and it’s not my favorite. There were some places the quick changes helped keep me moving forward, but in other spots it felt too frenetic—I wanted to linger with each voice longer before moving to the next. Even that critique has a compliment at its core, though. The only reason I felt that way was because the three main character voices are so well-developed that I wanted to keep reading them.
As a language geek, the way that translation, mis-translations, and cross-language communication in general are explored in this book was a favorite detail. Colors are a thread that runs throughout, and take on a new meaning through the perspective of Olivia, for whom color has always been inaccessible. I also enjoyed the way that reinforced the setting. The fact that Everleigh is an outsider in this town is smart, giving the reader some insights and details they might not get from Marta or Olivia, who have lived there their entire lives. Across all three perspectives, there was an authority to the historical details that made the setting feel very real and immersive.
Post-WWII Europe isn’t a period of history I’ve read about (or even thought about) much, but I enjoyed the little glimpse of it I got in The Things We’ll Never Have. I’d definitely recommend this book to any writers who want an example of how to balance multiple first-person perspectives, whether or not a historical novel is one you’d normally go for. And for me personally, it was a fun way to learn the lesson that it’s good to read outside your usual comfort zone, because you can discover enjoyable stories that you would never have encountered otherwise.
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