Looking back, the cat should have been enough of a warning sign.
The Road to Tender Hearts is about a quirky family road trip where an incredible number of extremely unlikely events occur, and these events somehow serve to bring the disparate members of the family together into a cohesive, loving unit. And there’s also a sentient cat who knows when people are about to die.
The action actually starts with the cat, who is one of those nursing home resident cats that sleeps in the room with the patient closest to death. This is enough of a trope at this point that I was shocked an acclaimed new novel would use it so unreservedly, but so be it. When Pancakes the cat escapes he eventually encounters PJ Halliday, a retired postal worker who lives in a crumbling old house while his ex-wife Ivy has moved in with her boyfriend Fred just down the block. PJ is such a pathetic excuse for a man that his ex and her boyfriend still take care of him, but now they’re going on an extended trip to Alaska which has PJ terrified.
Right after Ivy and Fred leave for their trip, a tragedy occurs that upends PJ’s life. His estranged brother’s grandchildren are orphaned due to a haphazard murder-suicide, and PJ is the closest living relative. He impulsively agrees to take in Ollie and Luna, and bring them along on a road trip he’s had in mind. PJ wants to travel to a retirement home in Tucson to meet his old high school crush, a woman who has recently been widowed. Luna, who wants to visit a soap opera star she believes is her real father, is all aboard for the road trip, and Ollie and PJ’s adult daughter Sophie are dragged along for the ride.
I had a big issue with the way Annie Hartnett deploys her strange sense of humor. Pancakes continues his deadly ways throughout the road trip, mainly in bizarre accidents that make it look more like Pancakes is causing the fatalities than somehow sensing the Grim Reaper’s approach. The more deaths that occur, the more disturbing it got to me that Hartnett seems to think I should find them funny.
I had similar issues with other things Hartnett seemed to find humorous. Luna is a chronic shoplifter with a violent temper, who also domineers over her brother Ollie to an alarming extent. But that’s nothing compared to PJ, who is incapable of behaving responsibly, putting the makeshift family into dangerous situations because of his reckless spending, constant flirting, and heavy drinking. Hartnett may find him charming, but I don’t see it.
As the road trip drags on and the characters continue acting ridiculously, the book became a real slog for me. Very little of the humor landed, and none of the heartstring pulling moments had their intended effect. Instead, I found myself angry and practically wishing for bad things to happen to the main characters.
