Hopeless Hope

EDEN by Andrea Kleine begins with two sisters, Hope and Eden, kidnapped as teenagers. As adults, Hope finds out the man who assaulted them is up for parole. She then searches for Eden, who became a stranger almost immediately after they were found. Everything is told through Hope's POV, but she flashes back and forth between the kidnapping, her past and her current search.

At first, Eden appears to be the damaged one, but eventually Hope's life seems so much worse. At one point, when her father essentially told her to get over it, I wondered why she didn't just kill herself. Everyone seemed so focused on Eden's well-being in the beginning, and supportive of her Bohemian lifestyle later on, while Hope was left to twist in the wind for the rest of her life.

However, there is the possibility Hope is an unreliable narrator and her take on events could be extremely inaccurate. Upon closer scrutiny, Hope continues to play the victim in her interactions with pretty much everyone in her life (i.e., all her problems are the result of someone else's actions, she takes zero personal responsibility), yet she criticizes Eden for not dealing with what happened to them. Hope tends to be self-destructive, but she judges Eden for her life choices.

The end of the novel is extremely anti-climactic, and any sympathy or concern I had for Hope had dissipated into apathy. I really wish readers would have been given Eden's POV as well. As the novel stands, I did read the story in one sitting, and I never lost interest in the unraveling of events. I just find it ironic Hope seems so hopeless. Eden, in contrast, seems to have found her namesake.

As always,
AstraDaemon

My #1 Pick For 2015

On September 6th, 1965, Sutter Wayne Thomas, 8, went missing from the Mecklenburg County Fairgrounds in Charlotte, North Carolina. He remained missing for eight years, and when he returned, horribly scarred and disfigured, he remembered nothing of where he had been, who had taken him, or what had happened to him. His abductor was never apprehended, or even identified.

30 years later, Sutter is a highly-successful true crime author and a public relations agent for missing children, lending his fame and fortune to the efforts for their safe return. For the most part he has adjusted to the world around him, though any lingering effects from his ordeal flare to the forefront when on the exact anniversary of his abduction, another 8-year-old boy goes missing from the exact place, at the exact time, in the exact way Sutter had.

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Heritage by H. Perry Horton is the best fiction that I've read all year. The novel begins with a news article, drawing in readers while laying down the foundation of the story. The story follows the POV of Sutter - a former kidnap victim and now a public relations agent for families of missing children, Patrick - the current missing boy, and Dale - a detoxing junkie who might know where Patrick is being held. There is disturbing imagery of the tortured little boy, but the description is subtle - no graphic details of the actual violence. I am impressed with how Horton terrifies readers without exploiting the pain and suffering of the characters for shock value.

Possibly due to the number of horror/mystery/thriller books I have read, I guessed correctly which character is the perpetrator and how the person gets away with it, but it didn't ruin the story for me at all...and, even though I figured out who the killer is, I couldn't have predicted the ending if my life depended on it.

I've never been so traumatized by a fictional character before reading Heritage. I've had nightmares from stories before, but this novel is so horrifying, I couldn't even read it one sitting. I kept having nightmares that the killer broke into my house to get to my son.

Horton is an exceptional horror writer, a true master of suspense, and I sincerely think this novel should be given an award. I look forward to reading more from this author.

As always,
AstraDaemon