This was an interesting and thought provoking read, following the thoughts of a man who is being torn apart from grief after losing his wife to a terrorist attack. Just how would you react? Do you have the capacity to forgive? Or do you just want revenge and retribution for the act carried out which has destroyed your family?
Michael is the distraught husband in the story, and through his own thoughts, his past, his talks with his therapist, we get to witness the way his mind is working and processing the tragic events. The glimpses we see of him before the atrocity lets us know he's not the nicest of characters himself - as a headteacher he wants his rules obeyed at all times and thinks nothing of disciplining the pupils in the most severe ways. There seems very little compassion to his personality - if you do wrong, there must be consequences. No matter if you're a pupil, his daughter... or a terrorist.
It was often hard to find myself caring too much for Michael despite what he'd been through, I had more compassion for his daughter who was also struggling to deal with the loss of her mother, but he seemed to disregard her feelings. He always finds a way to justify his behaviour and responses which shows a lot about his state of mind - this is a man who is very angry at the world and having a plan of revenge allows him to have a routine and distraction from dealing with his own grief in a rational way.
There's paranoia in his day to day life now, and even when talking with the therapist he has an answer for everything, and can find no way of relating to his daughter which was the saddest part of the story. When the family should be pulling together, he's pulling it apart.
I found the last third of the book most revealing and shocking and that helped regain my interest again as it began to repeat itself a little during the middle. It's a book that gives you a lot to think about in questioning justice and grieving in such terrible circumstances.
Michael is the distraught husband in the story, and through his own thoughts, his past, his talks with his therapist, we get to witness the way his mind is working and processing the tragic events. The glimpses we see of him before the atrocity lets us know he's not the nicest of characters himself - as a headteacher he wants his rules obeyed at all times and thinks nothing of disciplining the pupils in the most severe ways. There seems very little compassion to his personality - if you do wrong, there must be consequences. No matter if you're a pupil, his daughter... or a terrorist.
It was often hard to find myself caring too much for Michael despite what he'd been through, I had more compassion for his daughter who was also struggling to deal with the loss of her mother, but he seemed to disregard her feelings. He always finds a way to justify his behaviour and responses which shows a lot about his state of mind - this is a man who is very angry at the world and having a plan of revenge allows him to have a routine and distraction from dealing with his own grief in a rational way.
There's paranoia in his day to day life now, and even when talking with the therapist he has an answer for everything, and can find no way of relating to his daughter which was the saddest part of the story. When the family should be pulling together, he's pulling it apart.
I found the last third of the book most revealing and shocking and that helped regain my interest again as it began to repeat itself a little during the middle. It's a book that gives you a lot to think about in questioning justice and grieving in such terrible circumstances.