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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
A great book but the subject matter was very disturbing at times. The premise of the book is about sexual child abuse. Very heavy & hard to read as a mother
Wow. I bought this book solely based on the title. The Kindness of Strangers....sounds like such a sweet book! I love being kind to strangers! Needless to say, I was completely caught off guard lol!
This book was amazing. It was a tough read, but I could not put it down. The characters in this book will stay with me forever.
This book was amazing. It was a tough read, but I could not put it down. The characters in this book will stay with me forever.
A really good book on a hard topic. It broke my heart and brought me to tears but I continued to read it. Overall, it was a great read.
I believe that this is the best book I have read in the past 3 years. I read it during my lunch hours at work, and would find myself looking forward to see where the characters went next.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read this book in a day and a half. It was easy to jump right in to the story and I got sucked right in. That being said, it brings you into a HEAVY topic and there were more than a few points in the story that my heart broke for these characters. it's not a light, quick, happy read. It was tough to swallow at times. But, I really liked it. And, as hard as some of the content was to stomach for me at times, it was still a strangely and surprisingly beautiful story.
Moving and disturbing. Makes us realize that we never can know what goes on behind the closed doors of our friends and neighbors. It's the tale of a woman who discovers that someone she thought was a close friend leading a normal, happy life is really entrenched in evil.
It still seems odd to me that my first “don’t want to put it down” book of the summer is one that deals with such a dark and disturbing subject. As I was sitting on a dock, enjoying the LONG awaited sun, I kept wondering why I was so eager to be reading this book when the main subject turned my stomach. And yet? I kept reading.
Something about the characters, something about the flow of the words…even though the characters are pretty stock, the words are well-chosen but neither beautiful nor outstanding…there’s something about “The Kindness of Strangers” that I couldn’t resist.
(OK – I’ve been trying to avoid spoiling the big reveal in the book since it’s not on the dust jacket…but I will probably have to pull the rabbit out of the hat here or I’m going to sound like an idiot. So – SPOILER ALERT!)
Jordan, an only child from what seems like the perfect family in what seems like the perfect small town in Ohio, is the victim of such horrendous abuse from his parents that at times the situation seems ridiculously far-fetched. It’s not, though, as news stories can attest…it’s just on the very, very far edge of believable. If one can get past that and suspend disbelief enough to accept the story, the idea of what this boy was forced to endure is heart wrenching.
“It was Wednesday night. Wednesday. He was safe on Wednesdays. He could relax and pretend they were a normal family. He was in his room, studying math. The intercom clicked on and his mom said, “There’s somebody here for you.” Who? He knew it wasn’t Danny. Not anymore. Billy Porter? Billy sucked at math and asked Jordan to help him all the time, even though he wouldn’t even sit with Jordan at lunch. Would Billy actually come to Jordan’s house just for the math homework? Jordan didn’t think anything of it because it was Wednesday. Bad things never happened on Wednesdays, so he’d walked downstairs right into it. When he saw the new people, a man and a woman, and the lights set up, he’d even stuttered, “B-but it’s Wednesday.” The couple laughed. His mom and dad laughed. And their laughter broke something in him. Or maybe fixed something in him, because he’d decided not to be “a good, good boy,” and he’d fought it, which he hadn’t done since those first times. It took all of them to hold him down.”
This was the most gut-wrenching and eloquent part of the story for me. The idea that a little boy who had endured so much physical and mental anguish at the hands of people who professed to love him, could pretend to be part of a normal family for one day a week, held on to that one day a week…until even that small piece of safety and normalcy was ripped from him…just breaks my heart.
Other than Jordan, the other compelling character is Nate, the oldest son of Sarah, a friend of Jordan’s mother. Nate is the perfect age between child and adult to let us see the struggle he has to both relate to Jordan and try and help him. He tries to alternatively be Jordan’s friend and be a surrogate parent figure…and for a boy who’s father has recently died…it’s quite a struggle.
When Nate breaks the rules and visits Jordan in the hospital – the nurses and doctors start to remove him from the room.
“Jordan said, ‘I want him to stay.’”
“Nate felt a combination of victory and terror at those words.”
And later, when Jordan comes to live with Nate and his family:
“Nate walked away, but he didn’t want to go into the house, so he sat in the sandbox and thought about his dad. He thought his dad would approve of their fostering Jordan, but he also knew that they would never have done it if Dad was alive. There wouldn’t be room. And he didn’t mean room in the house, but that there wouldn’t have been room inside them, inside their lives. They wouldn’t have known they were strong enough to do this.”
At times beautiful, at times so appalling (in subject matter) that I seemed barely able to stomach the words my eyes passed across. It absorbed me for a few days and something about the story stays with me. Something…
I do think, however, that the journey for the characters and for the reader would have been FAR more fulfilling had the prologue been omitted. Knowing how the story ends makes the achievement of getting there much less satisfying. The characters have no idea if and how they will endure – and neither should the reader.
Something about the characters, something about the flow of the words…even though the characters are pretty stock, the words are well-chosen but neither beautiful nor outstanding…there’s something about “The Kindness of Strangers” that I couldn’t resist.
(OK – I’ve been trying to avoid spoiling the big reveal in the book since it’s not on the dust jacket…but I will probably have to pull the rabbit out of the hat here or I’m going to sound like an idiot. So – SPOILER ALERT!)
Jordan, an only child from what seems like the perfect family in what seems like the perfect small town in Ohio, is the victim of such horrendous abuse from his parents that at times the situation seems ridiculously far-fetched. It’s not, though, as news stories can attest…it’s just on the very, very far edge of believable. If one can get past that and suspend disbelief enough to accept the story, the idea of what this boy was forced to endure is heart wrenching.
“It was Wednesday night. Wednesday. He was safe on Wednesdays. He could relax and pretend they were a normal family. He was in his room, studying math. The intercom clicked on and his mom said, “There’s somebody here for you.” Who? He knew it wasn’t Danny. Not anymore. Billy Porter? Billy sucked at math and asked Jordan to help him all the time, even though he wouldn’t even sit with Jordan at lunch. Would Billy actually come to Jordan’s house just for the math homework? Jordan didn’t think anything of it because it was Wednesday. Bad things never happened on Wednesdays, so he’d walked downstairs right into it. When he saw the new people, a man and a woman, and the lights set up, he’d even stuttered, “B-but it’s Wednesday.” The couple laughed. His mom and dad laughed. And their laughter broke something in him. Or maybe fixed something in him, because he’d decided not to be “a good, good boy,” and he’d fought it, which he hadn’t done since those first times. It took all of them to hold him down.”
This was the most gut-wrenching and eloquent part of the story for me. The idea that a little boy who had endured so much physical and mental anguish at the hands of people who professed to love him, could pretend to be part of a normal family for one day a week, held on to that one day a week…until even that small piece of safety and normalcy was ripped from him…just breaks my heart.
Other than Jordan, the other compelling character is Nate, the oldest son of Sarah, a friend of Jordan’s mother. Nate is the perfect age between child and adult to let us see the struggle he has to both relate to Jordan and try and help him. He tries to alternatively be Jordan’s friend and be a surrogate parent figure…and for a boy who’s father has recently died…it’s quite a struggle.
When Nate breaks the rules and visits Jordan in the hospital – the nurses and doctors start to remove him from the room.
“Jordan said, ‘I want him to stay.’”
“Nate felt a combination of victory and terror at those words.”
And later, when Jordan comes to live with Nate and his family:
“Nate walked away, but he didn’t want to go into the house, so he sat in the sandbox and thought about his dad. He thought his dad would approve of their fostering Jordan, but he also knew that they would never have done it if Dad was alive. There wouldn’t be room. And he didn’t mean room in the house, but that there wouldn’t have been room inside them, inside their lives. They wouldn’t have known they were strong enough to do this.”
At times beautiful, at times so appalling (in subject matter) that I seemed barely able to stomach the words my eyes passed across. It absorbed me for a few days and something about the story stays with me. Something…
I do think, however, that the journey for the characters and for the reader would have been FAR more fulfilling had the prologue been omitted. Knowing how the story ends makes the achievement of getting there much less satisfying. The characters have no idea if and how they will endure – and neither should the reader.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Writing this review for my future self, who might one day forget the contents of this novel, see the cover and description (that does not at all prepare a person for the harrowing nature of this book), and decide to reread it. Don’t do it. And if you must do it, then prepare to ugly-cry like a teething baby.