The Taking of Eden by Robin AlexanderMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I start off by noting that I am unsure how to rate this work. I’m fluctuating between 3.75 and 4.35, and saying ‘so I’ll pick 4 stars’ just doesn’t feel right for some reason.
This is one of this author’s early works – back when different genres, styles, etc. were being played with and it shows. Well, I do not mean this book is all over the place, it isn’t really. It’s just that it doesn’t really read like a Robin Alexander book. Mind there are unexpected flashes of humor that remind me of later books, but this work was never intended to be a work of humor. Its angsty, and psychological, and drama-filled, with crime and a bit of thrills here and there mixed in as well.
The book is called ‘Taking of Eden’, I mention the title so I can then say – one of the main characters is actually named Eden. Eden Carlton. (view spoiler) I mention all of this because it leads to the set-up of the story. Though the reader doesn’t know this going in, so maybe I shouldn't mention all of this, eh? I’ll add some spoiler tags and resume.
The reader of the book both does and doesn’t meet Eden at the beginning. Does because she’s there, but she’s not the main character in the beginning. No, that’d be Jamie Spencer, a nurse who got tired of the life and death found in hospitals and moved into working at a mental health facility. The McManus facility – a private one that caters to the rich, and is deeply concerned about privacy and confidentiality.
On her first day at this facility, Jamie is shown a particular patient – one intrigues her. No, this is not a book about a mental health nurse who becomes involved with a mentally ill patient inside a hospital. She becomes intrigued because of how much different that woman is being treated – only the supervising nurse is allowed access to her chart and only one doctor works with the patient. And anyone who asks questions about the patient gets run out of the building.
The book description is misleading. One of the reasons I was reluctant to read this book, beyond knowing it was an early Alexander book and highly unlikely to be humorous, was the book description. Well – ‘Murder and betrayal send three women fleeing for their lives deep into the woods of the Carolinas’ – isn’t exactly inaccurate but . . . is misleading for reasons I can’t really explain without spoiler tags being used.
Another character of importance is Holly – another nurse at the facility. She’s an important character, but not a POV character (the POV swings around a lot, and I mean a lot, so maybe she is at some point during the main section of the book). She’s one of the other people who notice the strange activities going on with that specific patient and both of them investigate the matter – both Holly and Jamie.
I liked this book a lot more than I did the other early Alexander books. Though mentioning ‘early’ reminds me why I give authors so much wiggle room – why I give them 3 to 5 books for me to come to a decision about them. If I’d read the first three books by Alexander, and only those three, I’d likely never have read another. And yet . . . bah, this isn’t a topic for this specific book. Though it made me look – first book I read by Alexander, no I mean by publication so let’s restart. First book published by Alexander that I read I gave a 1.5 star rating, then this book here, which is around 4 stars, then a 3.75 star book then a 4.75 star book . . . um, let’s pretend this paragraph never existed, or change the ‘if I’d only read the first three’ to ‘first book’).
Course this isn’t the 3rd or even second book I’ve read by this author, but the 27th (not counting rereads, which would raise things to … hmm, that number isn’t right I don’t think, looks closer; I’ve reread 4 of Alexander books, so this would be my 31st book read counting rereads). I do not remember the point of this paragraph.
Right, so, I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would.
Rating: 4.08
May 13 2018
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