My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry lifetime after lifetime.”
----Alex Collier
Sharon Guskin, an American author, pens her debut book, The Forgetting Time that narrates the story of a four year old boy who constantly asks his single mother to take him to his real mother after his nightmares. For his mother, the boy seems like making up imaginary stories, until when things get serious in his pre-school, she thinks that there is something terribly wrong with his little boy and she fears that she might lose her son to someone else when a doctor enters their lives.
Synopsis:
Noah is four and wants to go home. The only trouble is he's already there.
Janie's son is her world, and it breaks her heart that he has nightmares.
That he's terrified of water.
That he sometimes pushes her away and screams that he wants his real mother.
That it's getting worse and worse and no one seems to be able to help.
In desperation, she turns to someone who might have an answer - but it may not be one she's ready to hear.
It may also mean losing the one thing she loves more than anything.
Noah.
Noah is four years old and right after his nightmares in the middle of the night, he asks his mother, Janie, who is a single parent, that he wants to go back to his home, especially to his real mother. Every night it's the same story, Janie thinks that his son is making up imaginative characters in his head. But things changes, when she gets a call from his pre-school where the principal says that Noah is talking about guns and Harry Potters books, but the only problem is that Janie has never bought Noah any Harry potter books or never ever let him watch anything about guns in the TV, but then how a 4-year old possesses so much knowledge about these things when he has never been exposed to? Enters Professor Jerome Anderson, who is diagnosed with a rare form of Aphasia, which might make him dumb in the long run, but he is in a hurry to finish his book and make a name for himself, mostly, he needs to finish his research about reincarnations. Will he be able to find a new case and put an ending to his book as well as to his research of so many years?
The author's writing is fantastic, layered with enough suspense that kept me hooked to find out what actually is wrong with Noah. The story builds up pretty tightly without any single hint about the mystery behind Noah's pleads. The narrative is engaging but at times, it felt like diverting from the main story line. Since the story is an emotional one, the author have depicted heart-felt emotions which have power to move the readers. Moreover, the story will let the readers' heart syncopate with the pain, grief and loss over someone you love.
The chapters are divided between mainly Janie and Professor Anderson's POVs, but that doesn't make it difficult for the readers to contemplate the story with their own perspectives. The characters are flawlessly created by highlighting their strong and weak points, especially their deep, evocative emotions. Janie's fears for her son will actually keep the readers glued and will definitely keep them from turning the pages of the book till the very end.
Janie is brave and an extremely caring mother, for her, her son is her only priceless possession, and she would do anything to make him better. Anderson is running out of time and is in a race against his diagnosis and is extremely dedicated to find a cause to Noah's behavior, moreover, Anderson is haunted by his late wife's memories, which is beautiful yet tragically projected in the story line. Noah will make the readers fall for his sweet and witty demeanor and his character is so developed with so much depth, that it feels like rooting for him till the very end. There are also some supporting characters which play an important role to this mystery, that are also quite well-developed with enough emotions and pain.
In short, this is an intriguing book with an equally fascinating and riveting mystery that will enlighten the readers' minds by keeping them glued till the very end.
Verdict: Please don't miss out this gripping mystery which will empower your brain not only with the concept but also with the characters.
Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Sharon Guskin's publicist for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
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Author Info:
SHARON GUSKIN has been a fellow at Yaddo, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and Ragdale, and has degrees from Yale University and the Columbia University School of the Arts. In addition to writing fiction, she has worked as a writer and producer of documentary films. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons. THE FORGETTING TIME is her first novel.
Visit her here
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