The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Unspeakable things is a book inspired by the Jacob Wetterling story. For those of us who were kids at this time in Minnesota, it was a horrifying thing. This story dredges those feelings, along with others. I love how the back reads, “Cassie McDowell’s life …seems perfectly wholesome.” Actually, it doesn’t. Even the people outside her family in the book know that her life is not wholesome. But, let us get to the good, etc.

The Good – The book does dredge up a lot of emotion, especially if you lived in Minnesota at the time of the Jacob Wetterling disappearance. The author does a good job of tapping into those feelings. The author also does a great job of capturing how children on the edges of society are often missed by our safety nets. The writer did weave a good tale, it was like watching an accident where you can’t look away.

The Bad – It reads like a middle school novel. It is the style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid or one of those novels. The sentence and story structures made me feel like I was reading something aimed at a 10-13 year old. Unfortunately, the content is aimed at adults.

There was nothing truly redeeming in this story. You have an alcoholic abusive father, a mother who ignores what is going on and enablers all over the place. You have so many adults that are shady that at some point I thought each one of them was the one taking the boys. I know that real life stories hardly ever have heroes, but we need them in our literature so we have something to believe in.

The Ugly – The story is just ugly. The dad is ugly. The mom is ugly. The sister is ugly. Most of the kids are ugly. When I was younger, I watched the prequel move to Twin Peaks. It was called Fire Walk With Me. When I got done watching, I felt dirty. That is how this book made me feel. I hoped against hope that the Dad had never made it all the way up the stairs, but in the end, we know he had. The only thing that redeemed it was at the end you could believe that the main character told the truth and they took her away from her family. And isn’t that a terrible place to be, hoping a kid got taken from their family.