"I am going to start with review with a disclaimer. This review is subjective, from my point of view etc. I thought this book was terrible, bad, no good. You don’t have to agree with me, and you could think that this was the most AMAZING book and your eyes almost exploded from all the awesomeness that traveled through them to reach your brain which leapt in your skull with every sentence you read, and that is fine. I do not think that you are inferior to me.

Now on to my review. Stop here for spoilers (although you might regret it! It’s an awesome review.)

I am not one to judge books by their covers, although a good cover is always a bonus, and this book has a excellent one. Props to the graphic designer. Combined with being on the New York Times Best Seller list, and having an first rate premise, I thought this one was a winner. But I was wrong. DEAD WRONG (ok that is a little dramatic.) If I was describe my reading experience like the ocean tides, sometimes I would be fine, floating near the shore, but other times it would sweep me out to sea with its ridiculousness. The conclusion didn’t help the novel’s case. It left a distinctly bitter taste in my mouth.

So basically the premise is that a couple, Tom and Isabel, living on a island in a lighthouse in Australia, find a dead man and baby ashore. Isabel, filled with grief from her last three miscarriages, begs her husband to kidnap the baby and bury the dead man in a ditch so she can be fulfilled as a woman and finally have a child. She assumes that the mother is dead, so I mean, is she really doing anything wrong? It’s like when you find a stray dog and it has a collar. What if the dog was being abused, so that’s why it ran away? It’s your duty to keep that cute dog and love it forever. Except�. This is a BABY. Now I have never had a miscarriage, nor have I ever had children, so I guess this is why I hated Isabel so much. I don’t understand her point of view AT ALL. I agreed with Tom, and was pretty mad when his sympathies got the better of him. I mean really, it’s a BABY people. It is a human life you're messing with!

So Tom and Isabel visit the main land like every three years, and this time they bring the baby, who they have named Lucy, for her christening and to show off to everyone. Now here comes the twist: the mother is alive! Shocker I know. So Tom once again is like, “Hey, this is kidnapping now, and the mother is literally insane with grief. Maybe we should give back her baby.� And Isabel is all like, “No! I can’t have babies. And I am a selfish person who is pretending to be a good person by saying it is better for the baby if she stays with us. We can’t confuse Lucy!� For me, I have always thought love was doing what is best for the person you care for. Apparently, this is not what Isabel thinks love is, so this makes her the villain of the story in my perspective.

So of course, Tom and Isabel are found out eventually, all by Tom’s doing, so he takes the blame for everything. This is the point where I want to give up on the book, and it’s not because I hate Isabel for letting Tom take the blame to make him suffer for taking Lucy away. The story is full of pointless dialog and characters (and not even Jane Austin style with enjoyable pointless dialog.) It is like Stedman’s publisher was like, “This novel has to be 300+ pages so, get on that and write me some more!� I think I would have enjoyed this story much more if it was a short story. I skimmed the last chapters, just so I could be done with it.

Now there are some redeeming factors to this novel ( I mean it’s not like this is 50 Shades of Gray terrible, I gave it two stars) . Stedman is a great writer when it comes down to descriptions of the island of Janus and little antidotes about the 1920’s in Australia. I just didn’t like her characters, NOT one of them.

So my conclusion is read this book for yourself and make up your own opinion. As for me, I still need to learn that “judging a book by its cover� is a phrase for a reason.

***EDIT***
So I just found out that they are making this book into a movie. Because Hollywood.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2547584/?ref_=nv_sr_1
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