Buckeye: A Novel book cover by Patrick Ryan

Buckeye: A Novel Review

Name: Buckeye: A Novel Book Review
Rating: 4.6

✍️ Book by Patrick Ryan

Reviewed by Shadab Alam April 7, 2026

Editorial Rating

★★★★★ 4.6

Epiloguely review by Shadab Alam

Reader Rating

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Published	2024-07-07
Genre	Fiction,Family Saga
Language	English
Publisher	Dial Press
ISBN-10	0593448496
ISBN-13	978-0593448496

📝Epiloguely Editorial Review

Written and reviewed by Shadab Alam.

Ohio, the sixties bleeding into the seventies, a mother and a son, and a house full of things nobody says out loud. That's Buckeye. It was a Read with Jenna pick, which usually signals warm and readable, and it is both, but there are more teeth here than that label lets on.

Ryan's strength is

dialogue. People talk the way people actually talk, around things, past each other, and the mother-son relationship at the core dodges every easy version of itself. She's no saint, he's not just a wounded kid, and Ryan lets both of them be difficult.

The middle gets dense, sentences stacking until the momentum thins out. But the thing underneath, a kid wanting to be seen by parents too busy failing to notice, lands regardless of the decade. Not flashy. Good in a low-key way, and it sticks.

Book Summary

Set in the 1960s and 70s, "Buckeye" is a powerful and heart-wrenching novel that follows a family in the American Midwest. It tells the story of a young man navigating the complexities of his mother's ambitions and his father's failures. As secrets unravel and the pressures of the era mount, the family must confront the thin line between love and betrayal in a changing America.

What I Liked

The dialogue is sharp and funny without straining for it. The period detail feels lived-in rather than researched. And the mother-son dynamic sidesteps every cliché you'd expect it to fall into.

What Could Be Better

The middle sections get dense enough to drag, and a couple of the secondary characters stay thinner than the central family does.

Context Behind the Book

Ryan came up writing short stories, his collection The Dream Life of Astronauts got a lot of praise, and you can feel that background here in how much he wrings out of small scenes.

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Buckeye: A Novel Review

📝Epiloguely Editorial Review

Book Summary

What I Liked

What Could Be Better

Context Behind the Book

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