Since We Fell

What was a strong marriage? What was a good marriage? She knew terrible people who had wonderful marriages, glued together somehow in their terribleness. And she knew fine, fine people who???d stood before God and all their friends to profess their undying love to each other only to toss that love on a slag heap a few years later. In the end, no matter how good they were???or thought they were???usually all that remained of the love they???d so publicly professed was vitriol, regret, and a kind of awed dismay at how dark the roads they???d ventured down became by the end.

Dennis Lehane is probably one of my favorite authors. If not, he is definitely Top 3. I like the way he turns a phrase, his ability to deliver a plot twist, his general world view, his love of the average man/woman.

It had happened before she was born, this wholesale discarding of American industry, this switch from a culture that made things of value to a culture that consumed things of dubious merit. She???d grown up in the absence, in other people???s memory of a dream so fragile it had probably been doomed from the moment of conception. If there had ever been a social contract between the country and its citizens, it was long gone now, save the Hobbesian agreement that had been in play since our ancestors had first stumbled from caves in search of food: Once I get mine, you???re on your own.

This book is a bit difficult to review because it reads almost like two separate stories. The first half of the book is about a woman's search for her father and her struggles with anxiety. The second half of the book focuses on her relationship with her significant other and brings in thriller aspects. Overall, it feels disjointed.

Rachel Childs is a reporter who has never known who her father is because her mother, who is dead now, has withheld that information. As the book begins, she goes on a search to find out who he is. In the meantime, she is sent to Haiti to cover a natural disaster and begins experiencing issues with anxiety that lead her to become a virtual shut-in. Her marriage to the love her life begins to heal her, but then a chance encounter on the street one afternoon leads to questions and doubts that begin to unravel her reality.

Rachel is a complex character. She has many issues that stem from a childhood filled with uncertainty and manipulation, and those issues only get worse when she encounters difficult situations on her job. She is mostly a likable character, and the reader can feel sympathy for her emotional reactions. The other characters in the book are less likable. Many of them either withhold information from Rachel or purposefully deceive her.

The problematic aspect of this book is the plot. It just is not cohesive. The first half of the book feels like a completely different book than the second half. Some of the things explored in the first half are barely relevant or necessary to the second half of the book. Just reading the first half of the book, I would never have classified this in the thriller genre.

Overall, the book reads easily and has entertaining moments. However, the plot lacks cohesion and focus. As a result, I would not really recommend it.