RUN.

RUN by ANN PRATCHETT.

Two sons are becoming men under the very eyes of their adoptive father, Bernard Doyle. A student at Harvard, serious tip is happiest in a lab, whilst Teddy, a gentle dreamer, thinks he has found his calling in the Church - and both are increasingly strained by their father's protective plans for them. But when they are involved in an accident on an icy road, the Doyles are forced to confront certain truths about their lives and the identity of an anonymous figure who is always watching.

- Back Cover Blurb

Bernadette had been dead two weeks when her sisters showed up in Doyle's living room asking for the statue back.

- First Sentence; Chapter 1       

See My Thoughts below for my Memorable Moment

SOURCE ... A Reading Group read.

READ FOR A CHALLENGE? ... No.

MY THOUGHTS ... The main arc of the story essentially following the twenty-four hours proceeding an accident which sees one of the Doyle boys injured, our 'Good Samaritan' (I'll refer to her as this though in a novel of little to no surprises its apparent from the outset just who and what she is) in hospital, what may (or yet again may not) be her daughter an unexpected guest of the Doyle's, an Uncle who, a Catholic priest, is credited with healing the dying. 

There was such a myriad of characters (characters I hasten to add that rather than coming across as organic read as if they had been created with the sole purpose of getting a viewpoint across) all neatly lined up waiting for their moment in the spotlight all wrapped up in an implausible story that is both seeped in Political Correctness (and what I can only describe as pious morality) whilst constantly  utilising the self same offensive clichés and stereotypes. Even if we got to know precious little else about a character we knew their race ... perhaps the author's way of taking on racism or just her obsessing about it, I'm really not sure.

Set in a snow laden Boston ... {sigh} if only this snow hadn't been the deepest thing about the novel.

Alas it was only the origins of how a statue carved by an Italian sculptor who ...

'was so moved by the descriptions he heard of her slender neck, her delicate ears, the red wings of her eyebrows, that he set Saint Francis aside in order to carve a likeness of Doreen Clark but because he didn't want anyone to think he wasn't doing his job, was also a statue of the Virgin' (pg 6)

A statue that resembled Bernadette (the recently deceased mother of adopted siblings Tip and Teddy and great-great-great-great granddaughter of the said Doreen Clark) so much that it is said her sons believe 'it's actually a statue of her'; 

It was these 10 pages (10 pages out of a novel of 343 pages) that led me to believe Run was about one thing only for the rest of the book to go off at an unexpected tangent that actually had nothing to do with the beginning of the book, these 10 pages that led me to believe that here was a story I was going to like (was I disappointed!), these 10 pages that would have made for a great short story. 

The reality being this wasn't the story I'd hoped it was going to be. These 10 pages aside I'm afraid there was nothing else whatsoever about this novel that captured my imagination; the characters fell flat and as for the 'big' reveal??? Hmm!