Saturday 23 November 2013

Book Review- The Moment, Douglas Kennedy


During my Summer break I decided that I needed to do some more fictional reading as it was something that had gone to the side lines during my first year of University and so whilst shopping in my local supermarket I spotted 'The Moment' by Douglas Kennedy on sale for £2 and picked it up. My intentions of reading it straight away didn't go to plan but this past month I have been engrossed, every spare second I could grab I was reading it anxious to find out what the next development would be. I have never read anything by Kennedy before but the emotion he put into the view point of the main character, Thomas Nesbitt,was so believable I really did think that this was his own personal story he was telling. 

The description on Amazon is:

Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced American writer living a very private life in Maine. Until, one wintry morning, his solitude is disrupted by the arrival of a package postmarked Berlin.
But what is more unsettling is the name accompanying the return address on the package: Petra Dussman. For she is the woman with whom Thomas had an intense love affair twenty-five years before in a divided Berlin, where people lived fearfully under the shadows of the Cold War.
And so Thomas is forced to grapple with a past he has always kept hidden. For Petra Dussman was a refugee from the police state of East Germany. And her tragic secrets were to re-write both their destinies. 

Now I am not sure about the rest of you out there but when I read a book I do it as a form of escape, I want to be transported to somewhere more exciting than my Arriva Train Wales back home, or a cold park bench. I also want to get involved with the characters, get an understanding for the way that they view the world and what it is they are trying to get out of their present situation I am reading about. Kennedy manages to accomplish all of this and more with such ease! The book has many a twist in its plot and it is therefore difficult to go into detail without spoiling it for any of you who may want to read it (and you should!) What I can divulge though is that this book had me laughing on one page, holding my breath the next and then later in floods of tears- the emotive response that Kennedy managed to achieve is remarkable and I would thoroughly recommend you go and get yourself a copy ASAP!


I managed to snag another of Kennedys books second hand for a student budget friendly price and I literally cannot wait for it to arrive! Reading 'The Moment' rekindled my love of reading and made me make time for it even amongst a heavy university schedule and I have every faith that this next book will also do the same. 

Have any of you ever read anything by Kennedy? What books are you loving right now?

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