I am torn between three and three and a half stars on this one. The premise of the story intrigued me. As a fan of most things macabre, a fictional book based upon the dead coming back to life sounded interesting… and it was at first. Jason Mott’s characters are well-developed. Harold is an old, lovable grump. Lucille is a god-fearing small-town Southerner (which I found slightly annoying), and Jacob is eight and very, very well-behaved…which goes against the memories that Harold and Lucille have of him. Although there are things I liked and disliked about all of them, I loved Jacob. However, compared to the memories of him, Jacob in person was just a shell… (perhaps that was the point, but I’m not sure). I felt like Mott was eluding to something that he never got to. I left the book feeling like I didn’t know any more at the end than I did at the beginning and I honestly thought the plot was going somewhere else, somewhere much deeper and darker. So here is the breakdown:
Pros: While reading this book, I had a dream that someone I know came back to life. Awesome dream, but it was in line with the book and as such I had some conflicted feelings about seeing this person again, alive, and ultimately became angry at her in the dream. So, this book will make you contemplate this dilemma, but only briefly.
Cons: I never really got the point of the story. The story is just something that happened, nothing epic, no light bulb.
Summary: Interesting idea but not fleshed out. You will ponder the idea of life after death, and a world that just doesn’t have room for so many people. But Mott doesn’t offer any further explanations as to why it happens or what to do about it.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17182421-the-returned
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/15622939-allison
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