Everything, Somewhere by David Duane Kummer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Little Rush, a small town in rural America, it is the final summer holiday before their senior year and Hudson, Willow and Mason decide to make the best of it, they plan on having fun, smoking, drinking and talking the nights away with a final hoorah of not having responsibilities or feeling like they need to be adults, but Hudson is not as joyous as he would seem, he is bored of both life in Little Rush and life in general, he cannot see the life all around him, but can see the death which is slowly coming towards him, his melancholy is catching up with him and he feels like there is nothing which can stop it. He is going through the motions and pretending like there is nothing wrong, at least he is when he is around his friends, but their blossoming romance isn’t helping the situation, neither is the feeling that he cannot escape the stereotypical “farmer boy” image he is stuck with. As they start a typical night of amusement in Mason’s dads cabin, involving alcohol and reminiscing of good times past, Willow suddenly announces that a famous actor will be moving to Little Rush and when she reveals that it is Bruce Michaels, both of the boys get excited as it is their favourite actor of all time, this is where the speculation begins and Willow is bored after the conversation goes on for longer than she anticipated. The next morning amid hangovers from hell the guys tidy up and carry on discussing the news while Willow sleeps the alcohol off and when he is dropped off home, Hudson is in trouble with his parents and the excitement he felt beforehand disappears and his depression comes back full force as he sits on his own in his room with the joy sucked out of him.

Willow and Mason are also thinking about Little Rush and their future, what it will hold, why they are torn between leaving the town and staying, they try and figure out their feelings and as they spend more and more time together, they kind of leave Hudson behind and he begins to feel like a thirds wheel. Meanwhile, a chance encounter while sitting with Mason in the treeline which borders the outside of Bruce Michael’s house leads to a conversation with the man himself and leads to a0 feeling that he can confide in Bruce when he can’t with his friends. As the summer progresses, Hudson’s feelings spin slowly downwards as he receives bad news on top of more bad news, the gap developing between himself and his friends is widening as he feels uncomfortable being around them and abandoned when they stop inviting him to hang out as much. However, he is increasing the amount of time he is spending with the old actor and using it as an excuse to avoid everyone else, but this is leading him into a spiral which nobody seems
to realise he is in.

Will the distance which grows between Hudson, his friends and his family change things so much that it sends him in a direction he shouldn’t be going, or can it be mended enough that
Hudson can come back from it all? This is a story of summer breaks, mental illness, relationships, lies, truths and worlds colliding, it is in the most unlikely pairings where the dangers truly lie, but what the dangers are, only reading to the end will reveal.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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