According to the book blurb, this is an \u201cexotic fable for anyone who has ever longed to have, or adopt, a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is more accurate to understand, this is a book about a pedophile who desperately wants a Sri Lankan boy.
\nI have no idea if the author was entirely conscious, or conscious at all, of how strongly this theme permeates, then pulsates, through the book. I doubt she was much aware.
\nThis pedophiliac desire of the main character\/narrator is masked as the aforementioned longing to have a child of one\u2019s own.
\nWhen one reads the text, the desire is clear. This is not the desire to have a child. This is the desire to have a child to have sexual relations with. Specifically, a boy. It\u2019s creepy. Reverse the gender rules and one would not even hesitate to cast stones or see the pedophilia for what it is.<\/p>\n
Make it end<\/b>
\nThe book is bad for a variety of reasons. I will admit, Paula Coston is not a terrible writer. Her prose is palatable, just, her content is not.
\nAt 374 pages, the book goes on and on and on without any, actual, discernible point. I wish Coston\u2019s editor, assuming she had one, would have stepped in and asked her to tighten the book up. There are so many scenes that have no discernible point. So many pointless plotlines. So much pointless writing.<\/p>\n
(Click link to read the rest of the review):<\/p>\n
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This novel, this \u201cfable\u201d as it wants to call itself, would have been much better at 150 pages.
\nOver and over and over again, pointless scenes. Midway through, I thought I should have stopped reading the book. By the time I\u2019d reached page 300, I realized I should have stopped 200 pages ago, but I trudged on. Good money after bad, as the fallacy goes.
\nThe novel meanders between time, often 20 years in a single section. Then, there\u2019s the mention of the \u201cobject,\u201d entirely ancillary, entirely pointless.
\nI must admit, there is an interesting plotline surrounding the main character\u2019s friend and her brother. By the time it began to really play itself out, I had already stopped caring because the original interactions were so many pages behind him.
\nAll in all, it\u2019s not a book worth reading or mentioning.<\/p>\n
This book was received, free of charge, from the Goodreads First Reads program.<\/i><\/p>\n