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Bezig met laden... The Parable of the Mustard Seeddoor Lisa Henry
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Very tough, emotional topics written extremely well. The sensitivity and empathy Lisa Henry shows in writing these characters is amazing to me. This felt very real and authentic to me, very relatable. There's no magic cure-all to make everything perfect, just real people making real loving connections and trying to do better and find happiness and peace. Highly recommend. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
The past never stays buried forever. John Faimu is an Australian-Samoan police officer who deals with hurt kids every day. He loves what he does, but he's tired of the grind of shift work, and of trying to find a balance between his job, his family, and the young man who straddles the increasingly blurry line between both. Caleb Fletcher was the teenager John saved from a cult eight long years ago, and he's now the young man John wants in ways that neither of them should risk. Eight years after his rescue, Caleb is still struggling with PTSD and self-harm. John has always been his rock, but now Caleb wants more. Can he convince John to cross a line and love him the way they both crave? And when the monsters from Caleb's past come back seeking to silence him for good, will John's love be enough to save him? The Parable of the Mustard Seed is an mm gay romance featuring hurt/comfort, first times, found family, and angst with a happy ending. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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I have severe PTSD myself, from childhood trauma, and I generally really gravitate towards stories like this which feature PTSD, but it felt sort of half-done, despite its lengthiness. There were a lot of side characters I never cared about, the flashbacks at the beginning of the chapters were more interesting, raw and gritty than many parts of the story itself, which made me yearn to get to the next one, and I don't really need to hear about a McMuffin and burnt coffee, and 500 other tedious details, because at some point we slide from trying to ground the story in a contemporary, gritty world, to realising that the lacklustre existence of these characters re: these details is building a lacklustre story.
That being said, I think you can tell there's been some research here, especially into the operations of Australian law enforcement and psychiatric holds etc. and I really respect that. I like that John never 'fixes' Caleb (i.e. there's no magical healing c*** trope), and I like the moments we get to see Caleb's agency, though sadly they're few and far between, because so much of the story has to focus on Caleb constantly being triggered due to the nature of this also being a 'casefic' or a story that's extremely case focused.
Caleb does read like a fifteen year old, and not a twenty three year old. Some of that can be forgiven as 'his entire childhood was stunted by a cult,' but it also makes the relationship strange. Caleb's love feels more like trauma-bonding infatuation, and John's love in return feels like trauma-bonding paternal instinct. After a while, I wanted to see this relationship *develop* and *evolve* and I came to resent the fact that what felt like about 80% of this story isn't about Caleb, or John, but about Jessica, and Liz, and John-and-Darren, and David, and cases, and re-interviewing people we never see again, and a not-quite-cohesive web of ensemble characters who ultimately don't feel much like found family (except for Sepela, I love her).
I feel like this story was going for an atmosphere and a mood I could never quite find. The blurb combined with the title made me think this was going to be something it ultimately wasn't, I think I was looking for something a little more tender and hopeful, and a little less 'SVU but literary and dusty.' And sometimes I found myself thinking 'sure everything feels realistic, but when did realistic have to be so boring.' There feels like too much of a reliance on linear time in the chapters instead of time jumps in the narrative (with the exception of the flashbacks), and I think this story really suffered for not letting us see the inside of Caleb's mind, so we could really *see* that he wasn't just a stunted 'fifteen year old in the body of a twenty three year old.' Because like, not going to lie, a lot of the time he was
And as someone with PTSD caused by severe childhood trauma, I actually found him completely unrelatable, because of it. Which you know, is kind of a shame. A miss from me, but I can also see why other people love it. ( )