Thursday, September 28, 2017

A Tightly Ravelled Mind

OK this is probably the craziest book I have ever read.   When I looked back at reviews after finishing the book I saw that many people put it down without finishing it.  I did think about a few times, but I kept thinking that there would be a good twist at the end, so on I plunged.

I will say that it is not the worst book, it did keep me reading to the end.  It did have some clever plot points and funny, in a awkward way, scenarios.  I will be recommending this book to a friend of mine who is a psychologist.

But I will say that it is not a good mystery in the sense of a whonunit.  It does not really build suspense and there is not really any good character development, so that you are really basically just shocked with the ending, but the author has not done a good job developing any of the characters so that you feel sorry for anyone or that justice has been dealt.

This is the story or Nora Goodman, who is a Freudian therapist, separated from her husband, also a therapist, taking care of her two young children.  She has half a dozen clients and they are starting to die.  She becomes convinced they are being murdered.  She hires private detective, Mike Ruiz to find the killer.  

As Nora is working with her patients, trying to help them understand their neuroses, she is also still trying to work out her own psychological issues from her childhood.  Her first patient to die is Howard, which catches her by surprise.  Nora thinks,   "The media presented Howard's demise as accidental - a little chemistry experiment in his home workshop gone wrong. But Freud didn't believe in accident sand neither did I.  Deep down no one believe s in accidents. We all want meaning.  We prefer the illusion of control over what matters in our lives, no matter how irrational the explanation."

This is a story of a neurotic woman who has never resolved her harmful relationship with her father and mother, and is not really able to help her patients.  The people you, as a reader, are most concerned for in the end are her children.  Parents who never resolve their own problems can just pass the problems onto the next generation. 

No comments:

Post a Comment