Review: When choices are taken away
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 17, 2012
After three years in New York, Finn goes back to the island where he grew up to heal after a car accident. He meets Con, the lover who broke his heart, but where is Fitch, his twin, responsible for that heart breaking and his flight from home?The story was great. Finn is an artist from an artistic family. He grew up sheltered on an island, where he also met and fall in love with an older and fascinating man. He has a sensitive soul, but he's also easily hurt. It's clear that he isn't over the end of his story with Con and both men need a sort of closure that Finn's hasty departure didn't allow. When Finn discovers that no one has seen his twin brother, Fitch, for three years, he begins to assume the worst. No one seems to have seen Fitch leave the island, no one seems to want to talk about him and investigate his disappearance.I rarely doubt everyone in a mystery as I did in this book, and it was a great achievement in such a short story, but Fitch's disappearance was like a black hole that sucked all my attention into it. I felt so sorry for him and I didn't buy for one second that he was such a bad guy. Being the least talented of the two twins, he probably amped up the charm, but felt hollow inside. The relationship between the two brothers, of which we only saw a few sketches in Finn's recollections, wasn't spelled out, it was only suggested and still it left me with a feeling of regret for what we weren't seeing. I think Lanyon built such a great character in absentia and it unbalanced the story, for me it took away the charm from the romantic part of it and it made me detach from the main character. It was a powerful effect, but I ended up resenting even Finn. I like to think that some of Finn's guesses especially about the reason why Fitch went to the top of the tower were the right ones. I don't remember when I got so invested in a character who might have been a real jerk. Read it for yourself!