by Lisa Gardner
2007 Bantam Books (Random House)

Method of selection: one-word titles

First sentence: My father explained it to me the first time when I was seven years old: The world in a system.
Notables: To this day I don’t know how many cities we lived in. Or how many names I assumed. And That was the first night my father slept in my bed.

I desperately wanted to hate this — you have no idea how desperately. The title is pathetic, the cover is trashy and simplistic, it’s a New York Times Bestselling author (who has a thing for one-word titles), and the synopsis is ridiculous.

Normally when I’m looking for books to write about, I read the first page and try to quickly decide if it is shitty, not shitty, or neither, in which case I move on to the next. But like a Stephen King novel, I found myself reading on for many pages, past my normal three, unable to determine whether it was shitty or not. And as I have discussed before, the ability to keep you reading is the mark of a good writer. This isn’t good, but it sneaks into the not shitty category because it moves quickly, displays action, sadness, and just enough gravitas to sustain me. I’m almost sad to not have the time to find out what happens. But not really sad.

Still, even six whole giant pages in, I was conflicted with this sickening sense of being infected, because I still wanted to hate it. And I suppose that’s the definition of prejudice.

But hell, talent is talent. Read on. You can always throw up later.

Other reviews: Material Witness, Novel Ladies, Duffbert’s Random Musings, Bundu Reviews

(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through one of the links below.)