Review: Amazing debut novel
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 13, 2013
What is the difference between a good book and a great book?  People talk about a good book, perhaps recommend it to a friend or even rate it on Amazon. On the other hand, a great book connects in a very personal way. A  great book is inherently honest, without a shred of manipulation. It gets inside  you... tugs, digs, and performs reconstructive surgery on your heart and soul. A  great book leaves you no place to hide and forever changes you to the day you die. The Watchman by debut novelist Matt Langford is such a book.Adam is a mentally disabled teenager caught up in the everyday  maelstrom we call life. He cannot speak beyond a few simple words. Most of his  language is made up and known only to him. He possesses a very limited grasp of the past, with even less understanding of the future. Everything exists in the now, and revolves around him. Adam's family, which is the same as  saying his entire universe, is falling apart. His younger brother and sister  are growing up and changing in ways he cannot comprehend. His parents' marriage slowly grows cold under strain of a father's joblessness and alcoholism. Adam is also changing, physically becoming a man, imposing more unrelenting demands and needs upon an already stressed family.Until the day I die I will never look at a mentally disabled person, or their family, again without thinking of Adam.Read the rest of my review at Underground Book Reviews dot com.Underground Book Reviews