Review: A good message here...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 26, 2014
My review of: “The Moment We Began,” by Sarra Cannon.This is the first title I’ve read by Sarra Cannon, although she has written many. “The Moment We Began” is the second book in her “Fairhope” series. Even though this is labeled a series, a reader does not have to read the books in order, they work as stand-alones. I didn’t have any trouble reading “The Moment We Began” without having read the first book in the series. So it leads me to believe that the books are more companion books rather than a series of books that build one after another.The plot was rather interesting and, actually, one that can apply to all ages. You all know by now that I don’t really discuss the story line of a book in my reviews. I think it is so much better for a reader to read a book and experience that book’s energy themselves, like the author intended. But I will say this: the book touches on the materialistic nature of people and how, once we get a little, we always want more. It reminded me of the book “Give a Mouse a Cookie” that I read to my children when they were young. It also explored how the rich treat others differently—sometimes without meaning to, and how the middle class (or not so rich) treat the mega rich differently. Then the author took all this baggage and dumped it on a pair of nineteen/twenty year-olds and let them sort it out. Yikes. Great plot, great idea, and written very well.I liked the characters. Sometimes I think it’s hard for authors to write mega-rich characters that I can relate to, because, well, I’m far from mega-rich! (Someone have an extra million laying around they want to get rid of?) When I read novels with characters who have more money than they know what to do with, I sometimes have the tendency to think they’re whining. (Gee, you scratched your Bentley? How horrid!) But I think Cannon did a nice job of writing the characters in this book. In fact, I think part of the book was to show the reader how one character, Mason, could see how ridiculous they acted just because they had money. I loved Mason. I started out hating him, but as his true self emerged I couldn’t help it, I swooned.Secondary characters, there were some good ones, but they didn’t have enough meat to really play a big enough role in the story. I would’ve loved to have seen more from them, especially Delores and Buddy. I think there was a lot of potential to go even further with their characters.The Plot I’ve already touched on. I think it was really a great one. Well thought out and well written. I only had one problem with it and this might be a small spoiler so skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven’t read the book. Taking Mason’s age into account and the amount of time his dad was “doing what he did,” six years if I remember correctly, I don’t believe that Mason would have known about the secret for four years. He would have only been 16-17 and that age is usually happy to go on their merry way without bothering with their family’s business. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, that’s just how they find their independence-their individuality separate from their family. Mason was different than most of the mega-rich teens. He hadn’t been rich his entire life, so maybe that accounted for some of the reason he was more watchful, but I still don’t buy him knowing so soon. Maybe when he was 19-20 he’d understand 1) What was happening. 2) How it was happening. 3) That his dad was doing something illegal. But even with this small issue, I still think “The Moment We Began” had a strong plot with great pacing (I wasn’t filling out school fundraiser forms while I read) and a great message to all ages.Bottom line: I loved Cannon’s writing style. I really liked the book. So much so, I downloaded the first book in the series, “The Trouble With Goodbye (Fairhope #1)” and the novella “A Season For Hope (Fairhope 2.5). I only have one issue with the author…she just made my TBR pile that much bigger!