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The premise of this book was a man on trial for killing his wife who was dying of cancer. I liked that idea because it seemed like it was going to get really muddy like the other conflicts in her books. But the the whole mercy killing issue didn't really go anywhere. The characters became more developed as the plotline complicated and I was more interested in that than anything. Not what I expected, but it worked.
B-


I realized I like the JP books that have chlildren written in the storylines. I think this is because (1) the kids are never given too much page time and (2) she has a very loving & insightful voice when writing about the parent/child relationship. The kid characters are never annoying because she writes as such a parent that sees the kids realistically but with the love goggles. Reminds me of this song:

The story was about a dad who kidnapped his daughter from an alchoholic mother and set up a new life as the perfect single father. Good stuff, but a little bit dry. Sometimes the story was too close-knit, character-wise. The book needed more characters to loop throughout. It needed more, in general. It felt like the bare bones of a book that would be good once the lines were colored in.
B-