Book Review: "Saving Noah" by Lucinda Berry

I was up until the early hours of the morning last night and I haven't had much sleep. I'm cranky and tired, I'm on rations of coffee (my heart rate can't take anymore) and atop of this, I've finished Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry. Whatever little energy I had left, it has now been completely wiped by the fact that by the end of this book I was angry-crying into my hands. It was 6:15am and not a great moment for me. This book is a discovery of several moral arguments that I feel like I should be paying more attention to and yet, everything just feels too loud, too much, too over the top. I want to go back to bed. This book has thoroughly destroyed me.

The book starts with the seventeen-year-old Noah and his family being introduced. Noah is coming home, he is a sex offender now and his mother, narrating the book, wants to make sure he is comfortable as she knows that he is young and has made a mistake and doesn't want to give up on him. His father, Lucas, finds it difficult for him to be in the house and so convinces the mother to take an apartment in which she and Noah will live, so that he will be nowhere near his younger sister, Katie. I have to say that the opening hit me like a ton of bricks. It was not what I was expecting. I kind of felt a bit crap about Lucas' attitude because again, it's always the father that tends to abandon the children when something goes wrong. But much more has gone wrong than what we already know and in the end, you could say that Lucas is actually the villain here.

When Noah gets home, his home life is wrought with difficulty. He has no friends, he starts a new school where they learn about the fact that he has sexually assaulted two little girls and they beat him so badly they put him in the hospital. But Noah knows what he is and that's why when he gets out of the hospital, the remainder of his existence is dedicated to trying to kill himself. Lucinda Berry writes it sparsely. We have many a book with tons of atmosphere about suicide but this one has barely any detail. There's nothing gruesome or graphic, it's all just emotion, morals and decisions. It seems almost too straight forward and that's why it is so disturbing. With the morbid curiosity of a medical student in the 18th century, I didn't want to see the next bit but I couldn't look away.

Katie doesn't like the fact that her brother has to live away and is constantly asking whether she can see him or stay over. Lucas is completely against it and threatens his wife with lawyers when she allows Katie to sleep with her at the new apartment for one night. However, I would pay attention to what we learn about Lucas because it is even more disturbing and so, when you know why in fact, he is so protective of Katie - it will send a straight shiver down your spine. Lucinda Berry's portrayal that nobody is perfect but some are less perfect than others is something to be admired. I think I probably shouldn't have read this entire book in one sitting because there were times when I was just constantly feeling too anxious to go on but at other times, I was frightened and morally conflicted. It was completely overboard.

By the end of the book I felt like I had been for a run. There was a lot to take in, a lot to think about, the book was very clever in its ending and yet - I had no idea how I was meant to feel about it. I love books like this, I love books which challenge my worldview and leave me sitting there thinking that there's something dirty and wrong about me. Yet, I also love books that have these slow reveals that wait until the end to say everything they need to - and this book again, is one of those. If you want a book that will leave you staring at a wall for days then this one is for you.