Hi, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Bryan Reardon's Finding Jake.Simon has always tried to be the best parent he can be. Early on, he and his wife agreed that he would be the stay-at-home dad while she continued her career as a lawyer. It meant being home with first their son and then both their son and daughter, day in and day out. He was part of everything. He saw everything - all of the firsts, all of the events... And so when his son Jake is thought to be a suspect in a tragic school shooting, Simon is forced to question everything he knows.
I think I'm still reeling from this read. It's my second school shooting book in about a month (Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash was the other one) and as I mentioned in that review, it's just a tough subject overall.
Although both books are ultimately very different, Finding Jake does have some similarities to Silent Alarm. There the story is narrated by the sister of the school shooter. Here the story is narrated by the father of a suspected school shooter. And of course a lot of the emotions and the events going on around both characters are going to be along the same lines. And it's so frustrating!
It's frustrating to connect with a character - Simon - and his family and then face the same fears, concerns, and questions as that character. Was Jake involved? How could Simon have missed that in his own son? Is it somehow Simon's fault? Could Simon have prevented this atrocity? And most importantly where is Jake? Because Jake is missing throughout the story, having disappeared the day of the shooting.
Simon retraces memories of his time spent raising his son. Interactions between the two of them that might lead to some clue or give him insight into the son he thought he knew. All the while Simon is also dealing with the aftereffects of the shooting, watching his family crumble around him, and trying to find some clue as to Jake's whereabouts.
I think you'll understand when I say that Finding Jake is an emotional read!
Rating: 4/5
To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here. For more on Reardon and his work, you can like him on Facebook.
4 comments:
I read this one some months ago as an e-galley - before coming back to blogging. Wow. What a book. Different viewpoint on a lot of things. Reminded me of Defending Jacob, but completely different really.
Wow. That sounds like really tough read!
Emotional for sure! What a horror for a parent ... I can't even imagine how I would react.
Thanks for being a part of the tour.
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