I'm afraid I might have entirely missed the point of this novel. Frankly, I didn't see the point, but there must be one, because it's a bestseller.
It was quite easy to read through; overall I think it took me two hours to read. I appreciated the fact that there were only three chapters, because it forced me to finish it quickly. I would sit down and make myself read an entire chapter, so I finished it in three bursts.
I didn't like the main character. He starts out as a sadist and never really changes. His heart was broken, so he decides to break all other hearts in the world, one at a time. The whole novel consists of him explaining how he broke hearts and complaining about everything: the amazing job he got, the girl he fell in love with and broke his heart, the weather in Minnesota. It was just annoying to read all of his complaints. I suppose that's the point of a diary, so perhaps the fault there is mine.
I didn't particularly like the writing style. First of all, it was very difficult to figure out the order of the novel. The narrator often switches between past and present (or at least I think he does?) without any description or pause for the benefit of the readers. It's just really hard to keep track of where we are in time.
At what I thought was the climax of the novel, the narrator switches from first to second person point of view, and I really didn't like this. To throw such a change on readers at such an important part of the novel was frustrating to me. I was trying to keep up with his narration and then I had to switch points of view.
The narrator also digresses way too often: I'm sure this happens on every page. That in itself is difficult to get through but then the narrator continually apologizes for getting off subject and there's a great show of him trying to get back on track, which is just so muddy and difficult to trudge through. Maybe this is for comedic relief or something, but I didn't see the humor in it.
I did make myself think about what it means that the narrator is an "Oxygen Thief." At first, I thought he was stealing the oxygen of all the women whose hearts he broke. But then it became much more clear to see that he was stealing his own oxygen. Nothing is going the way he wants it to go in his life, and I think it's his doing: partially because of his own attitude, but also due to his laziness, his lack of self-control, and his general dislike for everything. Of course he has no oxygen. He's sucking everything out of the world leaving nothing for himself.
I can't decide if I'll read the rest in the series. I think the novel ended well. I should also mention that I find it very difficult to feel sorry for him at all in the end. He made it sound like he knew what was going on the whole time, and he had several occasions to end things, but he didn't. It wasn't necessarily his fault, but I do think he could have changed his story. When I'm done with my reading challenge this year, I might return to the series to see if anything changes in future books.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Thursday, February 8, 2018
C is for A Clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess
Is it better to have goodness forced upon you, or is it better to be able to choose to be bad? That's the question Burgess presents in this story of Alex, the main character. And this book made me think about which was is better. As a society, we like to think that goodness is obviously the better choice, but as you can see through Alex, who becomes capable of only goodness, that can't work as easily as we'd like it to.
The language was a difficult barrier for me, but after the first part of the book, I was able to really get into the story and I forgot about the difficulty of the language. I found too that even though I didn't understand all of the terms, it wasn't necessary for me to have a glossary or anything because if I couldn't figure it out myself, I didn't need to understand.
I remember talking to my husband as I read the first few chapters, and he and I were both appalled by what I was reading. The things Alex and his droogies did in this first part is really horrible, and yet, as I was reading, they seemed completely natural. This made me think about how neutral I am to crime now because of society. Crime is romanticized and dramatized and made normal through books and television, which is actually a really scary thing to consider. The actions in the first part are truly horrifying, yet I found myself laughing at some of the lines in the midst of the violence. That was a weird feeling, but Burgess manages to bring humor into the horror to make it seem more natural or human.
Alex himself is a very confusing character. He's only 15 when the book begins, and yet he and his friends have done some of the worst things I've known a human to do. At 15 years of age. Then, he turns around and smacks Dim because of his lack of manners. What? Manners are important to this guy who beats up anyone who crosses his path just for fun and rapes any girl or woman he sees? He's concerned about his muscle having proper manners? I also don't understand his fascination with classical music. How can he so easily see the beauty of Mozart and Beethoven, but fail to see any beauty or value in the life of a human being? That's a question I never got answered, and I might just have to figure it out on my own.
The captivating portion of this book really starts about halfway through part 2 for me, when Alex is presented with this new view of correcting criminals: "The new view is that we turn the bad into the good" (p. 104). They're going to eradicate Alex of all of his bad, to the point where he is capable of only doing good.
Burgess brings up so many good questions in this last half, mostly surrounding the question of free will. Is it better to choose bad than to be forced to do good? What makes a man good? If a man is incapable of committing bad, is he good? Can you cure a man of "bad?"
This was an excellent novel: excellent and horrifying. Is this what our future holds? Will future teenagers behave like Alex at the beginning? I pray not. If this is the case, how will we, as a society, handle this crime?
One thing I also wanted to touch on was the last chapter. When first published, the last chapter wasn't included, and I can understand why. I think it is so much more powerful to end on the previous chapter with Alex's cure. In my opinion, adding that last chapter takes away from the true purpose of the novel, and dissolves the impact that the final line could have on the novel: "I was cured all right" (p. 199). However, I'm sure Burgess had a reason for including that chapter, and as the author, I believe he knows best.
The language was a difficult barrier for me, but after the first part of the book, I was able to really get into the story and I forgot about the difficulty of the language. I found too that even though I didn't understand all of the terms, it wasn't necessary for me to have a glossary or anything because if I couldn't figure it out myself, I didn't need to understand.
I remember talking to my husband as I read the first few chapters, and he and I were both appalled by what I was reading. The things Alex and his droogies did in this first part is really horrible, and yet, as I was reading, they seemed completely natural. This made me think about how neutral I am to crime now because of society. Crime is romanticized and dramatized and made normal through books and television, which is actually a really scary thing to consider. The actions in the first part are truly horrifying, yet I found myself laughing at some of the lines in the midst of the violence. That was a weird feeling, but Burgess manages to bring humor into the horror to make it seem more natural or human.
Alex himself is a very confusing character. He's only 15 when the book begins, and yet he and his friends have done some of the worst things I've known a human to do. At 15 years of age. Then, he turns around and smacks Dim because of his lack of manners. What? Manners are important to this guy who beats up anyone who crosses his path just for fun and rapes any girl or woman he sees? He's concerned about his muscle having proper manners? I also don't understand his fascination with classical music. How can he so easily see the beauty of Mozart and Beethoven, but fail to see any beauty or value in the life of a human being? That's a question I never got answered, and I might just have to figure it out on my own.
The captivating portion of this book really starts about halfway through part 2 for me, when Alex is presented with this new view of correcting criminals: "The new view is that we turn the bad into the good" (p. 104). They're going to eradicate Alex of all of his bad, to the point where he is capable of only doing good.
Burgess brings up so many good questions in this last half, mostly surrounding the question of free will. Is it better to choose bad than to be forced to do good? What makes a man good? If a man is incapable of committing bad, is he good? Can you cure a man of "bad?"
This was an excellent novel: excellent and horrifying. Is this what our future holds? Will future teenagers behave like Alex at the beginning? I pray not. If this is the case, how will we, as a society, handle this crime?
One thing I also wanted to touch on was the last chapter. When first published, the last chapter wasn't included, and I can understand why. I think it is so much more powerful to end on the previous chapter with Alex's cure. In my opinion, adding that last chapter takes away from the true purpose of the novel, and dissolves the impact that the final line could have on the novel: "I was cured all right" (p. 199). However, I'm sure Burgess had a reason for including that chapter, and as the author, I believe he knows best.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
B is for The Blue Flower: Penelope Fitzgerald
I had a very difficult time with this book. I was struggling to find a book that started with "B," as per my Reading Challenge, and Google recommended this one to me. From what I gathered in reviews on this book, it is very important and a masterpiece. I couldn't quite agree with that.
The novel opens with this pair of college friends, Fritz (who we later find out is the main character) and his friend Dietmahler. Dietmahler is visiting Fritz's home for the first time. Fitzgerald talks about this visit for the first three or four chapters, and then suddenly focuses solely on Fritz, without any conclusion on Dietmahler's visit. Up until this seemingly random switch, it seemed Dietmahler would be the main character, the one who's journey we would be following. That is not the case.
We then follow Fritz on his journey to find the Blue Flower, as he wrote in his story of the same name. I didn't find any suggestions as to what the Blue Flower was, so I allowed myself to draw my own conclusions: perhaps Sophie or her youth, as he is striving for the entire rest of the book to win Sophie and ultimately marry her. This proves impossible with her death in the end, proving that the Blue Flower is unattainable.
About 60% of the way through the novel, we return to Dietmahler's visit for a few sentences, but again forego him for Fritz and his search of the Blue Flower.
We do receive more mention of Dietmahler as Sophie becomes increasingly sick and her family seeks help and a cure for her. He comes into the picture again, but doesn't really play a major role. This was confusing and off-putting to me because of the emphasis he received in the beginning. I must need to go back and re-read the beginning in the context of the whole novel and perhaps it will make more sense to me.
I wasn't all that fond of the writing style either. This was my first Fitzgerald novel, so I might need to read more of her works before I draw a full conclusion towards her writing, but I found myself often drifting from the story because her writing was not at all engaging to me. I was bogged down by the way she wrote and had to work really hard to keep going.
Over all, I would not recommend this book, but perhaps that's because I didn't understand the moral or the point or appreciate the beauty. Maybe after I finish my 2018 reading challenge, I can give the book another chance, turning to other reviews and studies to maybe understand more of what Fitzgerald was doing. I'm not deterred or disappointed in my inability to understand The Blue Flower, because I know I don't need to understand everything I read.
The novel opens with this pair of college friends, Fritz (who we later find out is the main character) and his friend Dietmahler. Dietmahler is visiting Fritz's home for the first time. Fitzgerald talks about this visit for the first three or four chapters, and then suddenly focuses solely on Fritz, without any conclusion on Dietmahler's visit. Up until this seemingly random switch, it seemed Dietmahler would be the main character, the one who's journey we would be following. That is not the case.
We then follow Fritz on his journey to find the Blue Flower, as he wrote in his story of the same name. I didn't find any suggestions as to what the Blue Flower was, so I allowed myself to draw my own conclusions: perhaps Sophie or her youth, as he is striving for the entire rest of the book to win Sophie and ultimately marry her. This proves impossible with her death in the end, proving that the Blue Flower is unattainable.
About 60% of the way through the novel, we return to Dietmahler's visit for a few sentences, but again forego him for Fritz and his search of the Blue Flower.
We do receive more mention of Dietmahler as Sophie becomes increasingly sick and her family seeks help and a cure for her. He comes into the picture again, but doesn't really play a major role. This was confusing and off-putting to me because of the emphasis he received in the beginning. I must need to go back and re-read the beginning in the context of the whole novel and perhaps it will make more sense to me.
I wasn't all that fond of the writing style either. This was my first Fitzgerald novel, so I might need to read more of her works before I draw a full conclusion towards her writing, but I found myself often drifting from the story because her writing was not at all engaging to me. I was bogged down by the way she wrote and had to work really hard to keep going.
Over all, I would not recommend this book, but perhaps that's because I didn't understand the moral or the point or appreciate the beauty. Maybe after I finish my 2018 reading challenge, I can give the book another chance, turning to other reviews and studies to maybe understand more of what Fitzgerald was doing. I'm not deterred or disappointed in my inability to understand The Blue Flower, because I know I don't need to understand everything I read.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
A is for Atonement: Ian McEwan
I read this book after watching the movie by mistake. It wasn't until I loved the movie and looked more into it that I figured out it was a movie based on a book. I knew I had to read the book, and the next time I was in a bookstore, I purchased it and began to read.
McEwan has such an interesting writing style. This is my first book of his that I've read, and I'm encouraged to read more because I was captivated by his way with words. It's hard to describe exactly what gives me this feeling, but reading the book was a similar experience to watching the movie. In the way McEwan details scenes, characters, movement, emotions, dialogue, etc., feels like stage directions in a script. This makes me feel like by reading the book, I'm actually watching a movie that's been written out for me. I loved it. Usually I like the freedom to visualize scenery and characters myself, and when I started the book, I thought I was going to be disappointed when I was handed every description and the exact way I should visualize everything. However, as I kept reading and the scenes became more complex and characters really started developing, I appreciated the spoon-feeding of detail. I didn't have to guess what McEwan was aiming for; he gave it to me exactly as he wanted.
While this was like reading a movie, it was a completely different experience from watching the movie. Aside from the obvious differences of book v. movie, the way in which I viewed characters was altered. Because McEwan gave us so much of Briony, I was able to understand her actions a little bit more. He gave us her every thought and reasoning and showed us how she reached her conclusions and how she defended her decision. This made her not as despicable as I found her in the movie. What she did was most certainly deplorable but slightly more understandable.
However, just when I reached that conclusion of Briony, McEwan threw more against her with the scene with Robbie and Briony's attempted drowning to see if Robbie would save her. In this scene she also confesses her love for Robbie, leading readers to believe that is the main reason why she did what she did. The problem is that this comes from Robbie's perspective, and based on the rest of the novel, I can't decide whether or not to believe this happened. I'm conflicted.
I love the ending of the novel especially. Briony returning to the "scene of the crime" to celebrate a birthday, the acting out of her first play, which was to be put on that first night, and all of the thoughts we get from her to wrap up the whole story.
I ended the book with a full disgust for Briony. She did wrong, she waited five years to even attempt to atone for them, and even then, she waited 60+ years to actually begin the process of telling the truth, and then because of liability, she can't publish her work until the criminals are dead, and at that point, she admits, she too will be gone, thus avoiding all scandal and blame. And what she ends up with isn't even the full truth. She changes Robbie and Cecilia's story for what purpose? To make herself feel better? To make her seem less a villian? I can understand wanting them to be happy and writing a story in a way that ends with them happy, but I think it's unfair that their true story is never told. While Briony thinks she's atoned for what she did, I find that not to be the case. She'll get to die completely unjudged by everyone involved. At least she'll die with the guilt of the lives she ruined.
I love the passion this book makes me feel. As you might be able to tell, I'm so angry at Briony, and I appreciate any book that can do that for me. I definitely need to read more McEwan.
McEwan has such an interesting writing style. This is my first book of his that I've read, and I'm encouraged to read more because I was captivated by his way with words. It's hard to describe exactly what gives me this feeling, but reading the book was a similar experience to watching the movie. In the way McEwan details scenes, characters, movement, emotions, dialogue, etc., feels like stage directions in a script. This makes me feel like by reading the book, I'm actually watching a movie that's been written out for me. I loved it. Usually I like the freedom to visualize scenery and characters myself, and when I started the book, I thought I was going to be disappointed when I was handed every description and the exact way I should visualize everything. However, as I kept reading and the scenes became more complex and characters really started developing, I appreciated the spoon-feeding of detail. I didn't have to guess what McEwan was aiming for; he gave it to me exactly as he wanted.
While this was like reading a movie, it was a completely different experience from watching the movie. Aside from the obvious differences of book v. movie, the way in which I viewed characters was altered. Because McEwan gave us so much of Briony, I was able to understand her actions a little bit more. He gave us her every thought and reasoning and showed us how she reached her conclusions and how she defended her decision. This made her not as despicable as I found her in the movie. What she did was most certainly deplorable but slightly more understandable.
However, just when I reached that conclusion of Briony, McEwan threw more against her with the scene with Robbie and Briony's attempted drowning to see if Robbie would save her. In this scene she also confesses her love for Robbie, leading readers to believe that is the main reason why she did what she did. The problem is that this comes from Robbie's perspective, and based on the rest of the novel, I can't decide whether or not to believe this happened. I'm conflicted.
I love the ending of the novel especially. Briony returning to the "scene of the crime" to celebrate a birthday, the acting out of her first play, which was to be put on that first night, and all of the thoughts we get from her to wrap up the whole story.
I ended the book with a full disgust for Briony. She did wrong, she waited five years to even attempt to atone for them, and even then, she waited 60+ years to actually begin the process of telling the truth, and then because of liability, she can't publish her work until the criminals are dead, and at that point, she admits, she too will be gone, thus avoiding all scandal and blame. And what she ends up with isn't even the full truth. She changes Robbie and Cecilia's story for what purpose? To make herself feel better? To make her seem less a villian? I can understand wanting them to be happy and writing a story in a way that ends with them happy, but I think it's unfair that their true story is never told. While Briony thinks she's atoned for what she did, I find that not to be the case. She'll get to die completely unjudged by everyone involved. At least she'll die with the guilt of the lives she ruined.
I love the passion this book makes me feel. As you might be able to tell, I'm so angry at Briony, and I appreciate any book that can do that for me. I definitely need to read more McEwan.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
New Year New Reading Challenge
New year, new me, right? Close enough. I haven't posted in a while; I'm not the best at remembering that I have this blog and remembering to post on it frequently.
Hopefully with my New Year's Resolution, that will change!
I have two main resolutions this year: journal every day and complete a reading challenge. I've always wanted to do a reading challenge, but I never have, so I figured, what better time to start a challenge than at the beginning of the year when goals and expectations are high all around the world?
I decided to start with a fairly simple reading challenge that leaves me with plenty of options and freedom but has a clear start and end point. I'm going to do the alphabet challenge. It's a pretty easy concept, I have to read one book for each letter of the alphabet. The first letter of the title is the one that counts. For example, I'm starting with Atonement by Ian McEwan. That covers the letter A. I'm not sure what I'll do for B yet, but I have a whole book to get there. Articles do not count for the letter, so for T, I cannot count The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff. That would count for O.
It should be pretty easy for me to complete, so the goal is to finish the entire alphabet by December 31st, 2018 at 11:59.
I'll be posting on each letter/book, so stay tuned!
Happy New Year!
Hopefully with my New Year's Resolution, that will change!
I have two main resolutions this year: journal every day and complete a reading challenge. I've always wanted to do a reading challenge, but I never have, so I figured, what better time to start a challenge than at the beginning of the year when goals and expectations are high all around the world?
I decided to start with a fairly simple reading challenge that leaves me with plenty of options and freedom but has a clear start and end point. I'm going to do the alphabet challenge. It's a pretty easy concept, I have to read one book for each letter of the alphabet. The first letter of the title is the one that counts. For example, I'm starting with Atonement by Ian McEwan. That covers the letter A. I'm not sure what I'll do for B yet, but I have a whole book to get there. Articles do not count for the letter, so for T, I cannot count The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff. That would count for O.
It should be pretty easy for me to complete, so the goal is to finish the entire alphabet by December 31st, 2018 at 11:59.
I'll be posting on each letter/book, so stay tuned!
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Love, love, love this book. But I also hated it because it made me cry.
I knew it was going to be a really sad book from the very first bit. What else can you expect when all the main character wants to do is kill himself?
You absolutely have to love Ove. Every quality is perfect in him. He is stubborn to the point where you can't help but laugh at him. The whole time I was reading, I just wanted to hug Ove, knowing he'd hate it so much.
I read the back of the book and assumed it would be like Up, minus the floating house and stuff, but it was so much more. Ove was more: more grumpy, more frustrated, more stubborn, more sad, more loving, and more lovable.
The book also had this horribly great dark humor to it; Ove couldn't successfully commit suicide. He wouldn't do something right or a neighbor would interrupt him. And he'd try his best to ignore them or scare them off, but he couldn't because he had a great family surrounding him.
I loved how Backman did the story: every once in a while he'd take his readers back to provide more of Ove's story, making us even sadder as we realized all that he went through. This backstory was very well spread out so that we were never over- or underwhelmed by his past but received information relevant to the current going-ons.
This book ended just as I would've wanted it too: Ove's natural death and a man just like him and his wife move into his house. I love that. It's just perfect and I think Ove would appreciate that.
I also really enjoyed Rune and Ove's relationship. Some days they got along just fine, but one little thing would would set them off again to where they wouldn't speak to each other for years. I enjoyed that we got glimpses of their friendship: enough to answer our questions but still have us wanting mrore of their interactions. And when it counted the most, Ove was right there for Rune, doing whatever he could to beat the men in white suits.
I think that was an interesting theme throughout. I'm sure someone with more knowledge could make some great political discussion on those "men in white suits," but I'll leave that to someone else. I loved that Ove kept saying that those men could not be beat, and we saw that as Ove continued to lose against them: until the end. Ove won and he won in a big way, with the help of his neighbors, of course.
Overall, this is a beautiful story of living life with there around you, standing up for your beliefs and your friends, and forgiving those who have wronged you. I definitely will read this again.
I knew it was going to be a really sad book from the very first bit. What else can you expect when all the main character wants to do is kill himself?
You absolutely have to love Ove. Every quality is perfect in him. He is stubborn to the point where you can't help but laugh at him. The whole time I was reading, I just wanted to hug Ove, knowing he'd hate it so much.
I read the back of the book and assumed it would be like Up, minus the floating house and stuff, but it was so much more. Ove was more: more grumpy, more frustrated, more stubborn, more sad, more loving, and more lovable.
The book also had this horribly great dark humor to it; Ove couldn't successfully commit suicide. He wouldn't do something right or a neighbor would interrupt him. And he'd try his best to ignore them or scare them off, but he couldn't because he had a great family surrounding him.
I loved how Backman did the story: every once in a while he'd take his readers back to provide more of Ove's story, making us even sadder as we realized all that he went through. This backstory was very well spread out so that we were never over- or underwhelmed by his past but received information relevant to the current going-ons.
This book ended just as I would've wanted it too: Ove's natural death and a man just like him and his wife move into his house. I love that. It's just perfect and I think Ove would appreciate that.
I also really enjoyed Rune and Ove's relationship. Some days they got along just fine, but one little thing would would set them off again to where they wouldn't speak to each other for years. I enjoyed that we got glimpses of their friendship: enough to answer our questions but still have us wanting mrore of their interactions. And when it counted the most, Ove was right there for Rune, doing whatever he could to beat the men in white suits.
I think that was an interesting theme throughout. I'm sure someone with more knowledge could make some great political discussion on those "men in white suits," but I'll leave that to someone else. I loved that Ove kept saying that those men could not be beat, and we saw that as Ove continued to lose against them: until the end. Ove won and he won in a big way, with the help of his neighbors, of course.
Overall, this is a beautiful story of living life with there around you, standing up for your beliefs and your friends, and forgiving those who have wronged you. I definitely will read this again.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan
What a page-turner! I felt so many things when reading this book: suspense because I had no idea who did it and every chapter, I changed my guess or Macmillan proved my suspicions wrong; horrible sadness because of what this mother had to go through, basically alone for the most part; anger at the way the public was treating Rachel when she was at the lowest possible point of her life; and then at the end I felt this relief/sadness because no one in that family would ever be the same and even though Ben was found and reunited with his family, they could never go back and he lost all of his childlike innocence at such a young age and in such a horrendous way. Rachel mentioned in the last chapter that he was having difficulty trusting which broke my heart. Of course he was having difficulty trusting people, because the one person he trusted outside of his family turned on him and took him away from all that he loved and knew, taking advantage of his childlike trust and innocence.
Macmillan did a fantastic job with this novel, bringing to light all the horrible effects of kidnapping, especially the ones that people don't always consider: the aftermath, even when the child is found and reunited with his family, the publicity and the attacks against the parents, and the horrible psychological effects on the family and the main detective.
Jim was one of my favorite characters in this novel. He worked so hard to save Ben, to the point where he wasn't sleeping anymore. Then, the he finds out that the woman he loves has betrayed not only him, but Ben and Ben's family as well as the entire police force. So while he loves her, he has to remove her from his life because that kind of betrayal, against everything in his life, is too much. After the case is closed, Jim finds room to blame himself for not solving it sooner and for suspecting the wrong people, and because of all that, Jim can no longer function at work and can't sleep at night.
I really loved the way Macmillan wrote this novel. I loved the interweaving of styles, from Rachel's and Jim's perspective written out in regular narrative, to the addition of emails, blog posts, websites, and then the notes from Jim's counseling, which happened after the matter, but helped bring readers through exactly what Jim was feeling and how he was being impacted by the course of events. This change in writing styles really helped move the story forward and kept me entertained the whole time.
This was a fantastic read, and I would recommend it to everyone. It helps readers understand more what it's like for a family to go through something horrible like this, bringing both the perspectives of the family and the police force. It was captivating and heartbreaking and oh so good.
Macmillan did a fantastic job with this novel, bringing to light all the horrible effects of kidnapping, especially the ones that people don't always consider: the aftermath, even when the child is found and reunited with his family, the publicity and the attacks against the parents, and the horrible psychological effects on the family and the main detective.
Jim was one of my favorite characters in this novel. He worked so hard to save Ben, to the point where he wasn't sleeping anymore. Then, the he finds out that the woman he loves has betrayed not only him, but Ben and Ben's family as well as the entire police force. So while he loves her, he has to remove her from his life because that kind of betrayal, against everything in his life, is too much. After the case is closed, Jim finds room to blame himself for not solving it sooner and for suspecting the wrong people, and because of all that, Jim can no longer function at work and can't sleep at night.
I really loved the way Macmillan wrote this novel. I loved the interweaving of styles, from Rachel's and Jim's perspective written out in regular narrative, to the addition of emails, blog posts, websites, and then the notes from Jim's counseling, which happened after the matter, but helped bring readers through exactly what Jim was feeling and how he was being impacted by the course of events. This change in writing styles really helped move the story forward and kept me entertained the whole time.
This was a fantastic read, and I would recommend it to everyone. It helps readers understand more what it's like for a family to go through something horrible like this, bringing both the perspectives of the family and the police force. It was captivating and heartbreaking and oh so good.
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