(taken from my goodreads.com account)
I don't think I've ever been able to say this about a book before but I can actually agree with much of what is said in numerous positive and negative reviews here on GR about Saving Max.
If I was going to point anyone toward this it would be Picoult readers. But I'd also give them fair warning - this isn't as good as Picoult's books. It's on the way and it's very apparent that van Heugten has talent for sure. But she's not there yet IMO.
A few of the problems with the story were the timeline towards the end, in the last quarter or so. There's a real stressful time period where things need to happen and miraculously Danielle always manages to do everything in time. Even when that means boarding a plane, flying to a different state, leaving the airport and getting to someones home - all while her companion uses the restroom back in the first airport. It didn't fit because said companion wouldn't have waited hours before calling Danielle. This type of scenario played out a few times, in differing ways of course.
I also felt interrupted in the story when Danielle managed to do things that just can't be conceivably done in this day and age. No normal Mother (a non-criminal, non-hacking Mother that is, which is supposed to be Danielle) can just decide to break into the country's top psychiatric hospital and also do so successfully. It's just not plausible. And she does it with ease. She gets in, she gets past nurses and guards, she gets past cameras, it's all too much. That really did a number on me personally.
I also feel like it was a tad too long. My trade paperback copy is 376 pages and off the top of my head I'd say the story could have been pared down some 76 or so pages.
Some of the positives about the book are the ending, the characters, and Max himself. Max is a pretty strong semi-main character IMO even though at times he's the weakest link in the chain. The ending is hard. It's not the happiest ending in the world. I expected, even though I don't normally like when this happens, everything to be nice and tied up by the end. It's not. Well, some is, but there's at least one pretty big aspect of the story left wide open. I know a lot of people don't like this. I happen to enjoy that sometimes and this is one of those times. It just makes it all the more realistic to me since life isn't all happy-go-lucky by the end of the song. As angry as it makes me that so-and-so didn't get caught in this book or that such-and-such didn't happen in that book, I still prefer this manner of ending over a happy ending much of the time.
I didn't realize Saving Max was going to revolve around Munchausen's'. That surprised me somewhat but the author did a good job tying it in and still making the reader feel like they knew right where it was going.
I definitely think that with time and practice van Heugten will climb up the ladder of success. No one can know if she'll get to Picoult's level (she's standing a foot above the top rung IMO) but anythings possible.
I don't think I've ever been able to say this about a book before but I can actually agree with much of what is said in numerous positive and negative reviews here on GR about Saving Max.
If I was going to point anyone toward this it would be Picoult readers. But I'd also give them fair warning - this isn't as good as Picoult's books. It's on the way and it's very apparent that van Heugten has talent for sure. But she's not there yet IMO.
A few of the problems with the story were the timeline towards the end, in the last quarter or so. There's a real stressful time period where things need to happen and miraculously Danielle always manages to do everything in time. Even when that means boarding a plane, flying to a different state, leaving the airport and getting to someones home - all while her companion uses the restroom back in the first airport. It didn't fit because said companion wouldn't have waited hours before calling Danielle. This type of scenario played out a few times, in differing ways of course.
I also felt interrupted in the story when Danielle managed to do things that just can't be conceivably done in this day and age. No normal Mother (a non-criminal, non-hacking Mother that is, which is supposed to be Danielle) can just decide to break into the country's top psychiatric hospital and also do so successfully. It's just not plausible. And she does it with ease. She gets in, she gets past nurses and guards, she gets past cameras, it's all too much. That really did a number on me personally.
I also feel like it was a tad too long. My trade paperback copy is 376 pages and off the top of my head I'd say the story could have been pared down some 76 or so pages.
Some of the positives about the book are the ending, the characters, and Max himself. Max is a pretty strong semi-main character IMO even though at times he's the weakest link in the chain. The ending is hard. It's not the happiest ending in the world. I expected, even though I don't normally like when this happens, everything to be nice and tied up by the end. It's not. Well, some is, but there's at least one pretty big aspect of the story left wide open. I know a lot of people don't like this. I happen to enjoy that sometimes and this is one of those times. It just makes it all the more realistic to me since life isn't all happy-go-lucky by the end of the song. As angry as it makes me that so-and-so didn't get caught in this book or that such-and-such didn't happen in that book, I still prefer this manner of ending over a happy ending much of the time.
I didn't realize Saving Max was going to revolve around Munchausen's'. That surprised me somewhat but the author did a good job tying it in and still making the reader feel like they knew right where it was going.
I definitely think that with time and practice van Heugten will climb up the ladder of success. No one can know if she'll get to Picoult's level (she's standing a foot above the top rung IMO) but anythings possible.
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