I hated this from chapter 1 and wanted to DNF immediately, so I went ahead and read a bunch of reviews, both positive and negative. Yeah, I’m DNFing after chapter 3. 

I’m not interested in reading a book that seems to be mostly about a mom excusing her pedophile son’s behavior because she loves him, he’s her son, she hates to see him suffer due to the consequences of his actions, and she wants to help him, save him from himself, but she finally realizes she can’t because he was born that way and can’t help what he is and what he did. How tragic and sad… Give me a fucking break. 

If there’s one thing I don’t have and will never have is empathy for pedophiles no matter how fictional or how young they may be themselves. I’m aware they all have mothers and I don’t particularly care how much they love them, they’re still sick and I think they’re beyond help once they decide to act on their impulses in any way,

despite what this author maybe wants to make us believe by adding that twist about the father and how he was also a pedophile but he learned to control his impulses and never re-offended through the magic of… pinching his thigh when he felt like doing something? What the fuck? Just, no.

 

Based on everything I’ve read about the story and what happens, I don’t understand the intention of the book and I don’t think reading it in full will help me understand more than I do now. I think it will just make me angry (it already did after only 3 chapters) and I have better ways to spend my time, better books to get to. 

I will likely think twice about picking up another Lucinda Berry book. I’ve been on board with her deeply unlikable characters and taboo themes before, but she lost me with this one.