Trigger Warnings: Sexual Assault, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide (Assisted), Abuse

Information:

• Goodreads: 3.93 out of 111,939 Ratings
• Age Range: Adult
• Genre: Thriller, Horror
• Series: None

Summary:

Lucinda Berry is a psychologist who writes intense psychological thrillers. Within this particular thriller, Berry writes about a mother and son duo who have an intense and troubled relationship. Before getting into into it too much, keep in mind the trigger warnings of molestation, suicidal ideation, self harm, and physical abuse.

Noah admits to his mother, Adrienne, that he has assaulted two young girls on the swim team he was coaching. By the time the book starts, Noah is coming out of the treatment program he was in, which served as his sentence. The idea is that most minors who do acts such as these do so for reasons other than being a predator. Maybe it’s to assert dominance, because they live in an overly sexual household, or many other reasons. If the therapy was used as it should, it could even be successful for these situations. But Noah endures shock therapy and abuse instead. Still, he’s coming out supposedly reformed. It’s time to begin anew, rebuild his life and his relationships with his family. Sure, his dad is disgusted by him, refuses to allow him to be alone with his young sister, and required his mother to have an apartment for her and Noah instead of staying at the home. But it’s nothing his mother can’t handle. The book is mostly through his Mother’s perspective, as she navigates the difficulties of loving her son and wanting to protect him while also hating him for what he did.

Review:

‘He gave me a half-hearted smile. “You’re right. I’ve got something worse. At least when you have cancer, people still love you.”‘

This book is a complex look into the psychology of both mother and son. It is not an easy read in the slightest. I start the book hating Noah’s mom. She came off as if she were attempting to excuse her son’s behaviors. This is something disgusting that, unfortunately, a lot of people do. We see the lines of He’s just a boy, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He didn’t mean it. This shouldn’t ruin his whole life. And so on in nearly every case we see in the media. It’s gross and Berry does not shy away from this in her book. That being said, she somehow also writes these characters in way that you almost can’t help but feel sympathy for them. Noah’s mother did not ask for any of this to happen. She went from having a sweet boy who meant the world to her to everyone suddenly hating her for what he did – because there’s no way he did it without something being terrible at home, right? And even when a man (boy in this case) does something bad, the women in their life are still held accountable.

“and I clung to anything separating Noah from being a monster. He made a mistake. That was all. One mistake. We all made mistakes in adolescence.”

Noah comes home and he hates himself. He’s such a repulsive character and I was dead set on hating him for the entire book. And, while I certainly did hate him for what he’d done, seeing him as he works through this hatred for himself and as he desperately attempts suicide in order to prevent himself from hurting anyone ever again, I cried. I had never really stopped to consider that people like Noah are out there: people who hate themselves just as much as society hates them. This book makes the reader have conflicting emotions and asks really difficult questions. Could Noah ever be redeemed for what he’s done and who he is? It doesn’t appear so. I could see some people making the argument that this book makes light of Noah’s crimes, but it doesn’t read that way to me at all. Noah is unredeemable through this book – the ending (for me) confirms it. He is a menace to society, a real danger to children. Even though he hates himself for it and doesn’t want it to be that way, there is no way around that. He didn’t commit this act for any other reason than he is a pedophile and he was tempted. And let me tell you, reading Noah and his mother’s solution to this was heart breaking. Never in my life did I think I would cry over a pedophile dying, but here we are. It was heartbreaking that this was the lot given to Noah’s mother.

“It’s only a matter of time before my body responds. It rarely happens when I look at the first few pictures, but after a while it does. I can’t help myself. I have no control over it, and I hate myself for it.” 

There are a lot of different ways to define a mother throughout this book. Adrienne begins the book desperately trying to negate the severity of what Noah’s done in order to find some semblance of stability and comfort in what her life is now. You see as she struggles with the fact that her son is a predator, so much so that she ignores the warnings of his therapist when she tries to bring up an issue with his release. She clings to believing that Noah’s reasoning for molesting those young girls is for some other reason, a mistake or misunderstanding. Yeah, what he did was awful, but at least it didn’t go further, right? Throughout the book, you watch as Adrienne slowly comes to terms with it. You see as she tries to hold onto this belief desperately, yet also is terrified to leave her daughter alone in the room with Noah. And then she learns that there is no other reason. Noah is a pedophile. He will have these thoughts and urges for his entire life. So, does she abandon him in disgust as a woman and mother of a young child? Or does she stick with her son and try to help him as best she can as his mother? At what point should a mother give up hope? As a mother myself, this is an interesting question that I hope I never have to answer.

Adrienne and Noah’s solution is for her to assist him in committing suicide after he’s made multiple attempts. At this point, Noah has been beaten at school, sexually assaulted with a baseball bat as revenge, attempted to overdose, and attempted to hang himself. He’s come to the conclusion that his family cannot move forward while he is alive. Young girls are at risk while he is alive. He adopts the view of Pedophilia as some sort of incurable cancer – do you wait for someone to endure it or do you assist them in ending their lives on their own terms without anyone else getting hurt? Adrienne makes the difficult decision that no mother should ever have to make – for the sake of her son and society, she’ll help him. Adrienne and Noah spend one last ‘normal’ day with their family. And then they go home and she holds her son as he takes his last breath. And it is absolutely gut wrenching to read. I was full on ugly crying.

“Death was intensely private, and I’d never felt so close to another human being as I did when I held him during his final minutes.” 

This book is complex and emotional. It is not a book for everyone. I could easily see someone viewing this as Lucinda Berry making light of situations like these. However, that’s not how I read it. I read it as a therapist writing about someone society views as scum of the earth and the potential of that someone, despite being unredeemable and detestable, still being someone you can feel a smidge of sympathy for. Because I do. In this book, as in real life, two things can be true at the same time. I can hate Noah for what he did and agree that ending his life was the best course of action and I can feel sympathetic for the fact that he hates himself as much as I do.

The ‘mystery’ of this book isn’t the focal point of this book I don’t think. Which is a good thing, because it wasn’t great. I couldn’t have cared less. This felt more like Lucinda Berry had a conversation she wanted to start and used this as a way of starting it. There is no clear answer on Noah’s story. Some people might say he could’ve repressed the urges and used therapy and become a better person since there is a clear indication that that’s what he wants. He doesn’t want to be who he is, he wants to be a normal person. So if that’s what he wants, why couldn’t he use all the resources possible to become that person? Some other people might agree that ending his life was for the best. In this case, I’m on that end. And I don’t think anything you take away from this book is the wrong take because it is such a nuanced and complicated thing. It was an interesting read and I can’t wait to dive into more of her books.

I would love to know your thoughts if you’ve read this book! Did you feel sympathy for Adrienne or Noah? Do you feel like, with work and effort, he could’ve been redeemed or do you agree with the ending? Or, is there a 3rd option you’d agree with more?