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A review by lalaoblivion
Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon
2.0
It was okay.
The writing felt stale and too informal for me. The phrase “to be honest” felt constant, and utterly unnecessary. Why do you feel the need to specify your honesty, clearly-honest-protagonist? I also know that the author included constant little flashbacks to help us somehow connect with the family in a very short timespan, which is fine, but I felt nothing for the protagonist who narrators this book, even when he finds his son. There are a lot of emotional parts, between the initial call from the school, the waiting, the searching, the tension with his wife, but I felt apathy towards his struggle because none of the descriptions of his emotions felt authentic. I understand the stunned reactions, the feeling of being numb, and the overwhelming sorrow, but not constantly. It’s like all the emotions were superficial, just barely touching the surface of the overwhelming, heart-wrenching emotions that occur during these tragedies? Don’t give me what looks like the regular fictional spread of emotions. Give me something that tears me up, makes me think. Maybe even make me cry.
But alas, I did not. I did get pretty pumped when it was obvious he was about to find Jake, albeit it was incredibly obvious where he was going to be found. But that’s fine. But then that was ruined when Simon’s narration was utterly lackluster.
It was okay.
But not great.
The writing felt stale and too informal for me. The phrase “to be honest” felt constant, and utterly unnecessary. Why do you feel the need to specify your honesty, clearly-honest-protagonist? I also know that the author included constant little flashbacks to help us somehow connect with the family in a very short timespan, which is fine, but I felt nothing for the protagonist who narrators this book, even when he finds his son. There are a lot of emotional parts, between the initial call from the school, the waiting, the searching, the tension with his wife, but I felt apathy towards his struggle because none of the descriptions of his emotions felt authentic. I understand the stunned reactions, the feeling of being numb, and the overwhelming sorrow, but not constantly. It’s like all the emotions were superficial, just barely touching the surface of the overwhelming, heart-wrenching emotions that occur during these tragedies? Don’t give me what looks like the regular fictional spread of emotions. Give me something that tears me up, makes me think. Maybe even make me cry.
But alas, I did not. I did get pretty pumped when it was obvious he was about to find Jake, albeit it was incredibly obvious where he was going to be found. But that’s fine. But then that was ruined when Simon’s narration was utterly lackluster.
It was okay.
But not great.