I see the 5-star reviews and this is a page-turner, but gawd it’s depressing, too.
Redemption is largely about retribution. Eleven years ago Aaron ran over and killed Evelyn and Josh’s nine-year-old son. For eleven years, Evelyn has been waiting to serve justice – to kill Aaron. And Josh wants to stop her. Not because he cares about his son’s killer, but because he doesn’t want to lose his wife forever…
So as you can see, it has a pretty bleak starting point. And it takes a little while to understand what the story is doing, to get into the heads of all the main characters.
It’s well done, and soon you see that Aaron had a bad start in life and has made a hell of a lot of mistakes – but does that mean he should die? Can he be redeemed? Should he?
Evelyn has been through a terrible tragedy (I type as the parent of a nine-year-old) but all the same there are many points where I simply couldn’t sympathise with her. The author capably showed her route to madness though – so I understood it.
I did feel mostly satisfied by the ending and so for me this is a solid 4-star.
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