Read this as part of the on-going project to help a friend develop a reading list for her group, Adult Children of Parents with PTSD.
Our hero, Zach, certainly has PTSD. Boy, does he have it. Brittany, our heroine, is the exact opposite, almost a goody two shoes she has had such a stable home life that even her parents' divorce and virtual abandonment didn't register for what it was. I didn't find her in the least bit believable.
Zach, on the other rings true up to a point. Yes, he is in the system which pretty much fails him, but by eight years old, he really could not have been beyond hope and if that first foster family was all that loving, why didn't they put the poor kid into therapy when he was obviously begging for help? Why didn't the State of Maine require it? And when he ended up more or less adopted into the home of Philip and Cecile Law, why didn't they? He claims to have lived his life having turned them off by the time he was eight and couldn't turn them back on again. Therapy at age eight would have helped.
Yes, this is another one of those books where the love of a good woman heals PTSD and that is a bit of nonsense that needs to be squelched. Learning to manage the symptoms of PTSD is hard work and should not be glossed over. It's an insult to all who have to live with PTSD. In any event, Zach's transition is much too abrupt. It lacks credibility.
There is no excuse whatsoever for "illicit" getting into the final copy when "elicit" is meant. Whoever proofread this failed. Whoever edited this failed. You want me to spend my hard-gained money on your books? Then pay me the courtesy to use words correctly.
Another thing that annoys me is internal inconsistencies within a story that an editor should have found. Morgan says this about Zach, "Unlike everyone else he has ever met in his life, she believed in him." So I guess when Philip Law took Zach under his wing during the summers at camp, taught him to fly planes as Philip and his wife more or less adopted Zach, they weren't demonstration any belief in Zach.
Evidently, there is a whole series about Puffin Island and the inappropriate, intrusive neighbors and the complete lack of mind your own business. I've not read the ones that came before this in the series and don't feel I missed anything.