Book Review - Helpless

Helpless by Barbara Gowdy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After having finished this book last night before bed, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Helpless is a novel about child abduction. It tells the tale from the inside, from the helpless to solve the mystery mother's point of view, from the helpless because she's locked in a basement child's and from the helpless to control himself/helpless in the face of loving a man abductors.

I think the book was trying to throw a wedge of sympathy into my heart for the abductors, but every time I started to feel a twinge of that emotion, the rage and horror at what he'd done rode up in a big monster truck and demolished that little wedge in no time flat. Then it lingered around to make me mad at the author for trying to manipulate my emotions and mad at myself for reading this book.

So, while at times the writing was quite brilliant, I had so many issues with the subject matter that it was overshadowed in my mind by the ick-worthiness of the story.



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