Book Review- The Forgetting Time

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Title- The Forgetting Time
Author- Sharon Guskin
Published- 2016
Genre- Contemporary, mystery
Length- 368 pages
Rating- 4/5

Synopsis (Goodreads)- Noah is four and wants to go home. The only trouble is he’s already there.

Janie’s son is her world, and it breaks her heart that he has nightmares.
That he’s terrified of water.
That he sometimes pushes her away and screams that he wants his real mother.
That it’s getting worse and worse and no one seems to be able to help.

In desperation, she turns to someone who might have an answer – but it may not be one she’s ready to hear. It may also mean losing the one thing she loves more than anything.
Noah.

A novel that spans life, death and everything in between, The Forgetting Time tells an unforgettable story – about Noah, about love, and, above all, about the things we hold onto when we have nothing else.

Review- Overall I really enjoyed this book. I stayed up really late to read it which shows, at least to me, how good it is.

The characters are well developed and likeable, the writing is good, the story is amazing.

I did however, nearly give up on this right at the start. The first chapter sucks. Janie, the
main character of that chapter and one of the main ones throughout, just seemed sad,
desperate, and naive. I read this on my Kindle and had to check that I had opened the right book because this chapter sounded nothing like what I was expecting. I rolled my eyes several times while reading it, some of it was so cheesy.

The second chapter focused on another main character, but also annoyed me. There was a bit of medicine in this chapter too, and as usual with novels, there were mistakes with the medicine. The actions of the doctor are unrealistic, a neurology attending would not be wearing a stethoscope, they probably wouldn’t even still have one. One of the terms used just wouldn’t be used by any doctor either, or even a medical student. The discussion about aphasia was just wrong also, the term for receptive aphasia was used but expressive aphasia was described. That is a really easy thing to look up so I don’t understand how something just wrong like that manages to get included in a book. The behavioural things like the stethoscope being wrong is forgivable but basic facts being wrong just isn’t.

I also felt like the book dragged a little after all the main issues were resolved, it could have done with being a few chapters shorter. Pretty much everything was wrapped up 80% of the way through, if you stopped reading at that point you really wouldn’t be missing anything. The remainder of the book was a bit too “spiritual” for my taste too, some people like that, I know, but it’s really not my thing.

Other than that…. this was a great book. I know this review sounds a bit negative but I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

Has anyone else read it? What did you think?