Where I Can’t Follow

A Novel

By: Ashley Blooms

Narrated by: Julia Atwood

Walk through the door and leave all your problems behind...but you don’t know what’s on the other side. And once you leave, you’ll never come back. Will you go through?

Maren Walker told herself she wouldn’t need to sell pills for long, that it was only means to an end. But that end seems to be stretching as far away as the other side of Blackdamp County, Kentucky. There’s always another bill for Granny’s doctor, another problem with the car, another reason she’s getting nowhere.

She dreams of walking through her little door to leave it all behind. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. All anyone knows is that if you go, you’ll never come back.

Maren’s mother left through her door when Maren was nine, and her shadow has followed Maren ever since. When she faces the possibility of escaping her struggles for good, Maren must choose just what kind of future she wants to build.

From critically acclaimed author Ashley Blooms, Where I Can’t Follow explores the forces that hold people in place and how they adapt, survive, and struggle to love a place that doesn’t always love them back.

©2022 Ashley Blooms (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

melancholy story

Just so sad for the length of the book. There was never a shift in mood or lack of hope

Great story

I loved this book. Wonderful read and very relatable for the reader. Recommended it highly.

wonderful allegory

trigger warning for suicidal ideation. but if you're in a good head space, this is a beautiful tribute.

tough start

This was a slow story at the start. Lots of problems and stress for main character is hard to read for an empathizer who is hoping to hear hints of a happy ending or revealing a strong woman. Eventually all 3 20 somethings figure out a way forward and reveall their troubled past and true strengths!

A beautiful and profound representation of life’s challenges

I have never read a book that so brilliantly captures the experience of having depression and the need for escape. It is handled delicately and without cliche. As a person who grew up in a small town that is riddled with addiction and poverty, I can honestly say that this depiction was so good that at times it was like reading my own past. And much like “Hillbilly Elegy” it shows the depth of every character instead of treating addicts and impoverished rural people like one dimensional idiots. Very good.