Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

Oof. I just finished Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, and this is one of those reviews where I feel slightly guilty about my rating because I can absolutely see what the book was trying to do, I can understand why so many people connected with it, and yet… I just never fully got there myself.

Which is frustrating because I wanted to love this one.

I also think I need to accept that my relationship with historical fiction is still complicated. It’s a genre I’ve only really started exploring more seriously over the past couple years, and every time I pick up a highly praised historical fiction novel, I go into it thinking, “okay, maybe this is the one that fully converts me.” Sometimes that happens. More often, I admire the craftsmanship more than I emotionally connect to the actual story.

And unfortunately, Buckeye landed more in that second category for me.

At its core, this is a war story, but not in the traditional sense where battles and strategy are the central focus. Instead, it’s much more interested in the interpersonal relationships shaped by war. It follows multiple characters both during and after wartime, exploring how people navigate love, separation, grief, loyalty, longing, and the strange process of trying to resume life after something world-altering has happened.

Truly, I think this is much more of a love story than a war story.

Yes, the historical setting and wartime backdrop are important, but the emotional core of the book is absolutely built around relationships. Without those connections between the characters, I don’t think the story would have worked nearly as well. The war provides the framework, but the emotional tension comes from people trying to figure out who they are to one another before, during, and after everything changes.

One thing I will absolutely praise this book for is how intricately the characters’ lives are woven together. There’s a fairly large cast here, and while that occasionally became overwhelming for me, the actual structure of how all of their stories intersect is genuinely impressive. Even when characters seemed disconnected initially, the novel slowly reveals the threads tying everyone together, and that aspect was probably what kept me reading more than anything else.

Because I was invested in seeing how everything connected.

At the same time, though, I struggled quite a bit with the pacing and perspective shifts. The story jumps around frequently between characters and timelines, and while I know many readers enjoy that layered storytelling style, I found myself repeatedly needing a second to reorient myself. It took me a fairly long time to settle into the rhythm of the book, and even once I did, I never fully reached that point where I felt completely immersed.

It’s also very much a slow burn.

And I mean slow slow burn.

If you’re someone who prefers historical fiction with major dramatic moments, intense wartime action, or high-stakes twists, this may not completely hit the mark for you. There are emotional turning points throughout the story, of course, but this book is much quieter and more reflective than I expected going in. It’s much more focused on emotional realism and character dynamics than spectacle or dramatic plot developments.

I think part of my disconnect came down to relatability. There were several character choices throughout the novel that I intellectually understood, but emotionally struggled to connect with. And while I know books aren’t supposed to hand us perfect, agreeable characters all the time, I found myself repeatedly held at arm’s length from the story because I just couldn’t fully invest in the emotional logic behind some of the decisions being made.

Which made the reading experience feel oddly distant for me.

That said, I do think there’s a very strong possibility that this is simply a “me” problem rather than a flaw in the book itself, because I know so many people absolutely adored this one. It was even nominated for a Goodreads Choice Awards Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction award, and I can absolutely understand why readers who enjoy character-driven historical fiction would connect deeply with it.

For me personally, though, this ended up being more of a respected reading experience than a loved one.

I ultimately landed around two stars, which feels a little harsh even as I type it, because there are elements here that are very well done. I just never reached that point where I emotionally clicked with the story in the way I wanted to.

Still, I have to give huge credit to Patrick Ryan for the complexity of the storytelling structure because managing this many interconnected lives without completely losing the thread is genuinely impressive.