A review by anitaofplaybooktag
The Kept by James Scott

3.0

The Kept is a debut novel that focuses on a mother, Elspeth, and her 12 year old son, Caleb, set in upstate NY at the turn of the century. The book opens with Caleb's family being brutally murdered while Elspeth is away working as a midwife. The remainder of the book deals with Caleb's search for revenge and Elspeth's attempts to cope with the sins of her past.

This book had a lot of great components that generally I would really enjoy - - an upstate NY setting (where I am from), a lovely lyrical writing style, darkness and psychological suspense, historical setting, and a mother/son story. Unfortunately, it just didn't all come together for me, and it's a little hard to pinpoint exactly why not. I think a great deal of the issue was that I struggled to really believe the story. It's told well enough, but there were just too many strange circumstances to create an aura of believability. The actions of the son were just not realistic given his age. Make him 15 or 16, and I might have bought into it, but 12? The motivations of the various characters also seemed somewhat suspect to me . . .including the motivation behind the initial murder of the family. Each circumstance just seemed a little too far fetched. And while generally I find something more unusual in a story might grab my interest, the combination of too many unbelievable components did just the opposite. The ending is left for the reader to fill in to some degree, and I definitely do not think it was a successful attempt. It was as though the writer got tired of telling the story, and frankly I got a little tired of reading it as well.

All this being said, I think Scott has a lot of potential. His writing style really reminded me of Geraldine Brooks, and I think he has some interesting ideas. I'd like to see what he does next. For me, this book didn't quite work, but there were some great scenes and some fascinating elements. The creativity is there, and I look forward to seeing where he takes his talents.