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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
So i saw this movie many years ago when it was first released, and i loved it. and when i realized their was a book version i knew i wanted to read it, but when i finally got around to it i had basically forgotten everything that happened.
and holy shit, it all hit me like a ton of bricks as it came flooding back. Lehane does a great job building suspense - all bets are off about what can happen to pretty much every character. and the last 100 pages or so...you will want to read them all in one sitting, so be prepared for that.
this book addresses the question every CPS worker faces every day - the importance of a biological parents rights and family connection vs. someone who can provide a better quality of life. it's a question that we will never stop asking.
and holy shit, it all hit me like a ton of bricks as it came flooding back. Lehane does a great job building suspense - all bets are off about what can happen to pretty much every character. and the last 100 pages or so...you will want to read them all in one sitting, so be prepared for that.
This is the first book I’ve read in the series, and the only reason I’m going out of order is because I have an ARC of Moonlight Mile, which continues this story, sitting in my TBR pile. The good thing is that enough backstory is filled in for this to be a pretty decent stand-alone novel. In many ways, this is your standard child kidnapping/criminal enterprise story, but there are a few twists and turns along the way that make it stand out. Most of all, I think what holds it apart is the concept of a happy ending not necessarily being the best ending, and that sometimes following the law isn’t the only choice. I’m not sure I agree with how Lehane ends the story, but I understand why he did it. Most of all, I’m looking forward to reading more in this series.
Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are private investigators hired to find a missing four-year-old girl, Amanda McCready. It seems like a fairly straightforward case, even as it seems almost impossible to solve. Nobody has seen the girl since she disappeared and there are some unsavory people who may or may not be involved. (Depending on the lead, it could be related to drugs or she could’ve been taken by pedophiles recently released from jail.)
I’d read this before (after seeing Mystic River, I read everything Dennis Lehane had written up to that point) but it was better than I remember. I decided to re-read it after getting an ARC of Moonlight Mile in the mail. (That book is not only a new Kenzie/Gennaro but is also a sequel to this one.)
I love Dennis Lehane’s novels because most of them are noir, and I LOVE noir. I also love the fact that there are moral dilemmas, because most of the time, the right thing to do is a shade of degree. Obviously, if Amanda has been kidnapped by pedophiles, the right thing to do is to get her away from them, no matter what it would cost. But if someone were, say, kidnapped from a neglectful family to be part of a loving one, what’s the right thing to do there? Kidnapping is wrong, of course, but what if it has a good result?
I’d read this before (after seeing Mystic River, I read everything Dennis Lehane had written up to that point) but it was better than I remember. I decided to re-read it after getting an ARC of Moonlight Mile in the mail. (That book is not only a new Kenzie/Gennaro but is also a sequel to this one.)
I love Dennis Lehane’s novels because most of them are noir, and I LOVE noir. I also love the fact that there are moral dilemmas, because most of the time, the right thing to do is a shade of degree. Obviously, if Amanda has been kidnapped by pedophiles, the right thing to do is to get her away from them, no matter what it would cost. But if someone were, say, kidnapped from a neglectful family to be part of a loving one, what’s the right thing to do there? Kidnapping is wrong, of course, but what if it has a good result?
I can honestly say I did not see that ending coming. The descriptive language was AMAZING!
My only complaint is there were a lot of characters that could have been removed. I often forgot who people were and why they were there.
My only complaint is there were a lot of characters that could have been removed. I often forgot who people were and why they were there.
When I started Gone, Baby, Gone, my husband assured me that I would like it more than Sacred, the previous K&G novel. While Sacred still stands as my favorite, Gone, Baby, Gone was still another fast-paced and engrossing novel from Lehane.
My impressions about it are probably, to some extent, hung up in the fact that I saw the movie before I knew there was a book series. But, even so, I found myself caught up in the unresolvable, thickly tangled tragedy of the story.
The downsides were, for me, that those elements that raised Sacred above the other volumes of the series were again missing in GBG. Gone, Baby, Gone is less sharply, wittily funny than Sacred; we're back to Angie being more of a passive participant/sidekick, and we are back to Patrick's existential angst about the ugliness of the world. And, on the one hand, this makes sense: it's hard to be funny and it's hard not to feel a certain amount of angst and sadness about the ugliness of the world when you're confronting child abduction and child abuse. It's not a funny subject. And GBG is still quite powerful, especially as it confronts the lack of a clear "win" to be extracted from the situation, the shortfall between legally "right" and morally "right" and the messy coils of when or if ends justify the means.
My impressions about it are probably, to some extent, hung up in the fact that I saw the movie before I knew there was a book series. But, even so, I found myself caught up in the unresolvable, thickly tangled tragedy of the story.
The downsides were, for me, that those elements that raised Sacred above the other volumes of the series were again missing in GBG. Gone, Baby, Gone is less sharply, wittily funny than Sacred; we're back to Angie being more of a passive participant/sidekick, and we are back to Patrick's existential angst about the ugliness of the world. And, on the one hand, this makes sense: it's hard to be funny and it's hard not to feel a certain amount of angst and sadness about the ugliness of the world when you're confronting child abduction and child abuse. It's not a funny subject. And GBG is still quite powerful, especially as it confronts the lack of a clear "win" to be extracted from the situation, the shortfall between legally "right" and morally "right" and the messy coils of when or if ends justify the means.
just continuing to read dennis lehane's books ... despite the fact that every single one is like being told a sad story and then being punched ... whatever, i already know the next one i'm reading.
So far this is the best Lehane book I've read, and I didn't figure on that considering I'd already seen the movie which does spoil the shocker of an ending for you. The source material, I suppose, is just much deeper and more meaningful than in any of his other novels (at least the ones I've read so far, I only have 2 left in the Kenzie/Gennaro series). Child abduction, child endangerment, child abuse, molestation, these are all themes of Gone, Baby, Gone, and they're tough to read about, but at the same time when justice is meted out and the bad guys, and there's no doubt that they're bad, meet their end, it's a good feeling beyond what most vengeances will grant you. I've always said there were two crimes that I could never forgive. One is rape, and the other is harming a child in some type of irreversible way. This could mean killing the child or abusing it or yes, molestation. To me, these are unforgiveable crimes, and no amount of rehabilitation or therapy can change these people from what they are. Even if it could, how could someone "rehabilitated" live with what they'd done?
The other beautiful thing about Gone, Baby, Gone is that while its bad guys are clear cut and obvious, its good guys never are. Even to the end, its unclear exactly what the right decision for Amanda McCready was. The issue of child abuse is black and white, but the main plot points of this book are not, and it makes the story as compelling as anything you'll read. This is not just some mystery novel, nor are any of Lehane's books in my opinion. Instead, it's a moral study or a look at our country's strange system of law and how it can hurt the people it should be protecting most. It's also a tale of good and bad parenting and how irreversably those central people in a child's life can alter their development.
The other beautiful thing about Gone, Baby, Gone is that while its bad guys are clear cut and obvious, its good guys never are. Even to the end, its unclear exactly what the right decision for Amanda McCready was. The issue of child abuse is black and white, but the main plot points of this book are not, and it makes the story as compelling as anything you'll read. This is not just some mystery novel, nor are any of Lehane's books in my opinion. Instead, it's a moral study or a look at our country's strange system of law and how it can hurt the people it should be protecting most. It's also a tale of good and bad parenting and how irreversably those central people in a child's life can alter their development.
Lehane writes well-worded, well-structured mysteries novels with real, likeable characters. This one does not follow a pot-boiler structure but instead is a slow burn. There are no cliffhangers. Occasionally the story stops and then picks up again. You know, like in real life.
Pretty sure I saw the movie a few years ago, and yet I was still very surprised by the ending.