Book Review: Where When It Rains

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

Hedonism meets consequences in this sumptuously devastating literary novel. 

When Riley’s attempt to become a professional skateboarder ends with traumatic head injury and a severe case of vertigo, he swaps his board out for a camera. Stranded in Phoenix, his life revolves around his bartending job and a string of endless parties that bleed into one another. 

With his camera, no door is closed to him and soon he’s rubbing shoulders with all the sparkling players of the city. Among them is Ashli Rose: cool, stunning, and entirely unattainable. Her life is one long, glamorous celebration and Riley aches to be part of it. 

The hedonistic high life has a dark underbelly, however. Soon Riley is trapped in a cycle of failing dreams and past pain with a glitzy veneer of pleasure. The same cycle his new friends are stuck in. Then he meets a woman who makes him want to dig down and find himself again, if he can remember how.

The thing that hits you first about Where When It Rains is the gorgeous writing. It takes its time describing just how a person moves, how they speak, how they smile, or drink. It’s written in first person from Riley’s point of view, and it burrows into his thoughts and feelings with unnerving accuracy. Even the times that he doesn’t know why he’s acting in a certain way or feeling a certain thing are unpacked and displayed with unusual deftness. So much so that it’s hard to fault Riley for the many of the varied, God-awful decisions he makes. Being so entwined in his mind and life, it’s hard to see how he could have behaved differently.

The writing also manages to capture the almost dream-like feeling of the social life of Phoenix. A kaleidoscope of days rolling into each other punctuated by fleeting moments of true human interaction. As the novel crescendos and reality begins to bleed into the pages, the tempo and rhythm change with it.

Where When It Rains is a devastating study of the consequences of living as though the world and everything in it is meaningless. While the characters are a lost, numbed, and nihilistic lot, there’s an underlying thoughtfulness to them that makes them feel incredibly authentic. These are people who have been disappointed by life, time and time again, who don’t have the language for the emotions they’re feeling. So they brush them away with drugs and alcohol and the companionship of others who care as little as themselves. While other novels explore this sort of hard-nosed cynicism, few show the raw vulnerability and deep humanity lying under the façade.

As painful as it can be at times, Where When It Rains is lovely. Dark, bleak, and hopeless, but lovely nonetheless. The care with which it handles its broken but genuine characters, the way it allows the story to unravel at its own uneven pace, the wonderful little additions of seemingly superfluous storylines all build a powerful narrative that will stay with you long after it is done.

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