Review: TOUGH BOOK TO GET THROUGH WITH TOO-EASY END--
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 26, 2014
TRIGGER WARNINGS: child death, wife-beating, alcoholismTHE PREDICTION by Darren Sugrue is a nerve-wracking book. At first, I had a little difficulty keeping track of the various (pairs of) characters as the POV shifted with each chapter, but as I kept going, it became easier. Each separate track pulled me in. CAN someone's death-date be predicted exactly? If the person knows, or their spouse knows, could their doom be prevented? Or could foreknowledge CAUSE the prediction to come true? As the book progressed, I wanted to shout at the characters. Or walk away from reading more, so nothing bad could actually happen. But then, if I didn't finish it, how could I give the book the fair review it deserved? I would have missed the sudden twists I wasn't expecting more than 90% of the way in. There were a few grammatical problems, "Will" for "shall", and missing "had"s, plus a few other editing errors.MILD SPOILER: There was too much alcohol consumption affecting the plot. I mean, if you were concerned that someone might die today, and wanted to protect them, or even to instead help them along, would the first thing you'd do be to drink too much so you'd be too affected to achieve your goal? Yet this happened repeatedly. One alcoholic per book is more than enough, without everyone getting drunk...MAJOR SPOILERS: By the end, I felt that the characters were cookie-cuttered to fit the plot. A surprise psycho-loyal wife who would kill people on the predicted date, to make the predictions work out? One pair of parents whose child died young jig-saw-puzzle fits another pair of parents dying young leaving a child orphaned? How neat. Is it believable someone would calculate their own death, and that of their spouse, find out it's the same day (Hmm, maybe an auto accident?), yet fail to check and see whether their child might die on the same day too? Because some things, we just weren't meant to know, perhaps? Would they also fail to arrange for someone else to agree to take over parenting BEFORE the Big Day? Writing a will that provides for one's child in case of both parents' death, just in case, is hardly unknown. Also, a "fair" mystery presents all the clues to the reader before revealing the solution. The description of one clue was deliberately misleading.END OF SPOILERSI would give this maybe 3 1/2 stars at the end of the ride.I was given a free e-copy of this book through the LibraryThing Member Giveaways Program for the purpose of giving an unbiased review.