REVIEW:

Raise your right hand if you were bullied as a kid.

Now raise your left hand if you still have the emotional scars from it.

I’m lowering mine just briefly enough to write out my thoughts on The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell. While my sins were being too skinny, too pale, too meek and too much or too little of whatever my tormentors deemed acceptable at any given moment, Sam Hill had only one: he had ocular albinism.

When he was born, even his dad took one look at his red eyes and gasped, “What the Sam Hell?” The name stuck. Growing up in the ‘60s in a devout Catholic family, congregation, and school, those eyes also made it easy to label him “The Devil Boy.” Nuns and kids treated him cruelly, but none more so than the despicable David Bateman.

It would have been too easy for Robert Dugoni to write a story about how in adulthood David was repentant and Sam was forgiving, but instead he gave readers something more realistic. David was mean and stayed mean, and Sam carried the memories of being his earliest victim with him through the years as if they became part of his DNA. All too relatable.

Sam Hell has been a long-lurking title on my backlist, and I put off reading it because I had in my mind it would be a transcendent experience that needed to be savored. Ultimately I found it to be a very worthy read that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend, though I may have hyped it up too much in my own mind. My husband* read it as well and breezed through it. Short chapters make it a book you can nibble on here-and-there = ideal nightstand reading.

I’d also be remiss not to mention there are some serious A Prayer for Owen Meany vibes served here. In fact, Dugoni has mentioned John Irving as an early inspiration in various interviews. I can’t think of a more direct “Loved That? Read This!” scenario.

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell is currently available on Kindle Unlimited and includes WhisperSync for those who might prefer the audiobook format. (As of 2/3/21.)

*That skinny, pale, meek little girl grew up to be a confident woman that married a devastatingly handsome man and lived happily ever after. Suck it, bullies!

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates; “God’s will” is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother’s devout faith, his father’s practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends.

Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the friend he so desperately needed. And that it was God’s idea for Mickie Kennedy to storm into Our Lady of Mercy like a tornado, uprooting every rule Sam had been taught about boys and girls.

Forty years later, Sam, a small-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design - especially not the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown, and the life he’d always known. Running from the pain, eyes closed, served little purpose. Now, as he looks back on his life, Sam embarks on a journey that will take him halfway around the world. This time, his eyes are wide open - bringing into clear view what changed him, defined him, and made him so afraid, until he can finally see what truly matters.