In een afgelegen zomerhuis op het ingesneeuwde platteland houdt een jongeman het gezin waarin hij is opgegroeid in gijzeling. Terwijl hun leven op het randje van de dood balanceert, moeten de gezinsleden de harde realiteit onder ogen zien - dat waanzin dichterbij is dan we willen weten, en dat die zelfs kan ontspruiten aan ons eigen vlees en bloed.
I think with some good editing, this book could have been great. The story is very interesting but the writing was very scattered. The author would switch to a new subject in the middle of a sentence. There were also a lot of characters introduced very quickly but not described very well.
The narration changes from 1st person to 3rd, back and forth, making the book difficult to follow at times; but the loosely followed REAL event was so shocking and tragic that I appreciate the author's interest in writing about the family. Very sad.
The story is about 17 year old Maurice diagnosed with schizophrenia, who is unjustly released from the asylum. Without his medication he is turning more psychotic and agressive when he heads for his hometown to his family, where situations get more grim by the minute.
Eventhough I found the story not as thrilling and psycological strong as I thought when reading the description it is certainly a moving suspense novel.
..."captivates as it terrifies" pretty much sums up how I felt reading this novel. An enticing cover, a $2/bag book sale find, & having a basic curiosity about schizophrenia explains how I acquired this book---not the sort I would have selected and paid full price for, but an interesting read and adequately written enough to keep me turning the pages so I would give it 3.5 stars.
When I first read the plot synopsis, I was so excited to read this book. Once finished with it, I was beyond dissatisfied. The author took two thirds of the book to get to the meat of the story, and though the changing perspectives were interesting, I felt they made the story hard to follow. It was as though not every character had enough insight to be included in the perspective changes.
Really difficult to read. Too many story lines, in too many time periods combined with one story line of a schizophrenic makes things too difficult. Finding out at the end of the book this was once a short story explains a lot. It was probably great as a short story, as a novel - terrible.