Very well written. An engaging story with believable characters. Not a lot of hoopla, just real people with real problems. Has you rooting for the good guys. ( )

Untouchable by Scott O’Conner was a free friday book from a few weeks ago, sadly i broke Odysseus (my nook) and just finished it today on Telemachus (my new “simple touch” nook) and it was surprisingly good. The story is about a young boy and dad who are trying to deal with the death of their mother/wife. The Kid (as he is called) takes a vow of silence to try to bring her back while Darby slowly goes insane. To top it all off the Kid is constantly bullied at school, convinced that his mom left because of him and he has 1 friend. There is a slight surprise to the ending and the whole book is rather sad, but not really a depressing sad, mostly a hopeful sad. ( )

This book is almost painful to read - the grief that Darby and his son The Kid are suffering is palpable. The things they have used to stave off the grief - Darby's unemotional denial of reality and The Kid's silence - are failing them. The world painted in this story is bleak and it is only in the end that redemption comes. ( )

Extremely sad and depressing book. Although there was a glimmer of hope at the end, I could've used a bit more. ( )

DESCRIPTION
The months leading up to the 1-year anniversary of Lucy's death find her husband Darby and son "The Kid" struggling to come to terms with their loss. Both father and son have unwittingly abandoned each other as they travel down isolated paths of grief. As the 1-year mark approaches, Darby finds his life unraveling and his son slipping further away. Both must face the truth if they have any hope of finding each other again.

CONCEPT/PLOT - 5 stars
This was a truly sad but uplifting story. It pulls no punches, it doesn't sugarcoat things. It is real people dealing with real life, real situations that hopefully the majority of us never have to experience. But for those of us who have undergone such experiences, we know the stigma of being a social outcast, a pariah, an Untouchable. The burden that isolates us is also the burden that needs to be shared the most and this theme was a constant throughout the book. O'Connor shares that burden with his readers and asks that we the reader, share it with him. It is an intense read and expertly executed.

WRITING STYLE/EXECUTION - 5 stars
There was a lot of detail and back-story in the beginning that I had to have faith would come together somehow in the end, which, for the most part, it did. I was concerned though, that at a third of the way through, I was finding the pace slow, I was still not sure what I was reading, what the story was, and I hadn't connected to any of the characters. Then ALL of that changed. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but suddenly I felt like I was reading a different book. Not that the writing style had changed, but it took a while for things to gel. Once they did, the story really picked up, and I found myself rooting for the characters, feeling angry, sad, and outraged at times. If you like symbolism, this story has it in spades and it was fun to spot all those nice touches. I liked the ending, too. I do tend to gravitate towards realistic fiction, so it worked for me.

FORMATTING/EDITING - 5 stars
The formatting and editing was a non-issue for the most part. I read this book on my Kindle and the only complaint I have is that sometimes it seemed to be missing breaks between some character POV shifts and flash-back shifts. I stumbled a couple times on this. I don't know if other versions are like this or not, but if you're reading the Kindle version, you've been forewarned. : ) ( )