This is one of the few books that I started but didn’t finish. I made the decision to stop after reading about 70% of the book, but finally my time became worth more than slogging through the rest of the of the story.
Certainly the writer has some great skills, especially with the descriptive style. The first chapter grabbed my interest with beautiful scenes of Hawaii, and the feeling of the beach and the nature there. Unfortunately the storytelling was predictable and the voices of the three children who provide most of the story are largely the same.
Families are different, but this book shows a family I wouldn’t want to be a part of. Each member is stunted with jealousy, poor communication skills, and streaks of aggression – making it hard for me to like any of them.
And oddly there is very little joy in this book. In a setting that some people call paradise, with a character that has the power to heal, there is surprisingly little to be happy about here.
One final criticism was that like other books written in English that contains a “foreign” culture, there are cultural references sprinkled throughout. Doing this naturally is difficult – for me it felt like they went through and evenly distributed these references to Hawaiian language, food and history. It felt forced, like an awkward way to get credibility.
OK, so I couldn’t finish this one but no regrets about it. Next I am reading Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman.
