Eric Arvin (1975–2016)

4.5. Stars

Really just a beautiful and thoughtful meditation on what happens to us after we’ve passed away. It’s not all hearts and flowers, nor is it all doom and gloom, this is a place where one goes to hopefully find peace and make amends despite past mistakes and wrongs.

Our hero Joe awakens in an unknown realm. It’s fascinatingly wondrous but there’s a pressing urgency for him to rediscover himself down memory lane so that he can fully reap the benefits of his new existence. As show more Joe slowly remembers, there’s many a sucker punch of emotions through glimpses of his struggles, both triumphant and terribly painful, but most importantly is finally finding his true love - someone who’s everything to him, someone who he must reunite with.

Arvin’s take is not black and white but pervasive with redemption, forgiveness, and a tentative happiness should one be brave enough to take a chance at seizing it. Though perhaps Joe didn’t get his ultimate fairy tale ending when alive, rest assured he finds his blissful forever in Arvin’s blending of many interpretations, creating a unique (and personally preferred) alternative to the paradigm.

Overall affecting and thought provoking with a truly wonderful, and for once, both literally and figuratively, happily ever after. show less

OMG - this book was wonderful!

It is a journey in poetic description of a fantastic (in the strictest terms) afterlife. I loved it.

It was quite an uplifting story; but to have the beautiful, you have to experience the dark - this book delves into these notions but not in a flowery over-drawn way. Anvin's choice of words during the narrative was masterful; one well-chosen word can replace whole sentences. It definitely had paragraphs of descriptions but it wasn't repetitive - it took you show more further along the journey.

Normally I dislike flashbacks as a form of explaining a current situation, but in this book I craved them.

Wow - just wow.

My first time reading this author. It won't be my last. show less

This is the first novel by Eric Arvin, I think he self-published it years ago. It’s not the first book I read by Eric Arvin, and I’m happy about it, since I had the chance to read the witty humor of Eric Arvin in his other books, to read contemporary and fantasy tale, but in all of them there was also the bright light of hope. Why am I telling it? Since The Rest is Illusion is filled with autobiographical hints from Eric Arvin’s real life, and Dash, the young college student around who show more all the other characters turn is probably a propelled image of Eric’s himself. And it’s not a light story, it’s not an happily ever after story, at least not a classical happily ever after: Dash will find his way, but it’s a way that will cause pain and open questions to many of his friends. And so I’m glad to have had the chance to know another Eric Arvin, one that fought and won his own battle, and now is writing happily ever after romance.

I wondered a lot on the title, The Rest is Illusion: in the end I found my own meaning, the group of college students living in Verona College campus are also living in a secluded place, almost a limbo between their teenager years and adulthood; all of them are trying to find their path in life, to find their own persona separated from the family they were born in; all of them have to prove something, mainly to their parents. The life in campus is not still real life, but for them it’s the most important thing now, the rest, everything is out from that campus, is illusion, not real. But even in their secluded college they are living a lie, pretending to be someone they are not.

Dash is on a time limit, he has a degenerative illness who has already killed his father, and he is going step by step along the same path. He has no hope to find an exit from this nightmare, and I think that, even if not in a conscious way, he is trying to help his friends to find that exit he is not allowed to have. Ashley, the albino guy who is his roommate, always trying to fill his life with color, always trying to be as much a presence as his own body without color seems to not allow him. Sarah, who fell in love with Dash, but soon realized she couldn’t be anything else if not a best friend for him. Tony, in the same fraternity as Dash, who is hiding his own sexuality, while instead Dash is openly gay. For all of them Dash has a way out, and his journey in life will not end until he will not help all of them; it’s like if, until Dash has a reason to be, a purpose to follow, his illness will give him time: like for his final college paper, always growing, always researching, always without an end; Dash is not running ahead of time to finish it before the end, Dash is always finding a way to not put the “end” word on that paper.

There was this feeling while I was reading the book, the feeling that I didn’t want for things to find their right spot since I knew that once they did, Dash would have not reason to be. I think this book was a way for the author to exorcize his own fears, and once he did, he almost buried it in a drawer; the fact that now he is ready to let it out again is for me a good sign, Dash/Eric has found a way out of that limbo that was Verona College, into the real life.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984510907/?tag=elimyrevandra-20 show less

This is not a romance. And, it was a difficult read for me. But don’t mistake me - the characters come alive and suck you in. I felt an emotional connection to them, and the private college setting was realistically portrayed. The problem is that it is sad, and at some points painful, to read. Most of us know the horror of being bullied, or the agony of losing someone we love. Both of these are major events in the novel. In some ways, this was reminiscent of “The Dead Poets Society” in show more tone and feel. And also like “The King of Cats” – it’s about life. And life can be hard.

This is not done in the usual first person, or single character, POV. It has become almost unheard of these days, but this book rotates among several characters, slowly revealing who they are. Readers are not suddenly handed the “hero,” introduced to the object of his desire and boom! Dash is the protagonist, and he is dying. We never know of what because it’s not important. What is important are the people in his life, even his enemies. Because they are dying too, though not of disease. Unlike him, they can find a cure. The story alternates from his best friends Ash and Sarah, to the bully Wilder, to the popular jock Tony who's struggling with his identity. Readers spend time with each as threads and events slowly bring them together. And though nothing really substantial happens – no identifiable crisis, no murder mystery or complex plotline - I was strangely drawn in to these lives. I wanted to know, and the pages kept turning.

I wouldn’t recommend this to people just looking to pass some time with a little fluff. This is NOT light reading, but it IS very good writing. show less