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A review by paulabrandon
The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
4.0
This is a 3.5 rounded up to 4 because, in the end, I really enjoyed it, but at often points while I was reading it found it to be one of the most cringeworthy things I've ever read. The biggest flaw with this book is unfortunately the hero, Wilde. In this day and age, I can't believe Coben is giving us another version of the big, stoic, silent, gruff hero who all the women want to have sex with. By the time Wilde is hooking up with a woman, Sandra, at a hotel, I was ready to throw the book across the room.
Wilde's history is that he was discovered in the woods, at about 6 to 8 years of age, with no idea how long he was out there or how he survived and educated himself. The book barely explores it, other than to describe how it has now made him a bit of a societal outcast that everybody nonetheless trusts and respects and all the women want to fuck. It is clear that, like a lot of other authors, Coben perhaps wants to see this as a TV show. (As if enough of his material hasn't already been adapted!)
Anyway, Wilde is called upon to assist in looking for missing girl Naomi Pine. He is recruited by star lawyer Hester Crimstein, whose grandson Matthew is Naomi's classmate. I was initially worried that this would be yet another Harlan Coben what-parents-will-do-to-protect-their-children-because-parenthood-is-fleeting type thriller, but it thankfully has more up its sleeve than that, linking events to a senator whose bid for presidency is captivating the news world for not necessarily the right reasons. Coben avoids his usual pitfall of having all the characters knowing what is going on and simply refusing to talk to Wilde, and him instead figuring things out through being wily and distrustful (lol). I perhaps could have gone without Hester's second-chance-at-love subplot, however.
All that cringing I was doing aside, however, I must say I really enjoyed this. I was caught up in what was going on and read it in one go.
Wilde's history is that he was discovered in the woods, at about 6 to 8 years of age, with no idea how long he was out there or how he survived and educated himself. The book barely explores it, other than to describe how it has now made him a bit of a societal outcast that everybody nonetheless trusts and respects and all the women want to fuck. It is clear that, like a lot of other authors, Coben perhaps wants to see this as a TV show. (As if enough of his material hasn't already been adapted!)
Anyway, Wilde is called upon to assist in looking for missing girl Naomi Pine. He is recruited by star lawyer Hester Crimstein, whose grandson Matthew is Naomi's classmate. I was initially worried that this would be yet another Harlan Coben what-parents-will-do-to-protect-their-children-because-parenthood-is-fleeting type thriller, but it thankfully has more up its sleeve than that, linking events to a senator whose bid for presidency is captivating the news world for not necessarily the right reasons. Coben avoids his usual pitfall of having all the characters knowing what is going on and simply refusing to talk to Wilde, and him instead figuring things out through being wily and distrustful (lol). I perhaps could have gone without Hester's second-chance-at-love subplot, however.
All that cringing I was doing aside, however, I must say I really enjoyed this. I was caught up in what was going on and read it in one go.