WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW
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| “I rather doubt he had the sense to see the truth: that there are wounds worse than fatal, which the law's little binary distinctions-guilty/innocent, criminal/victim-cannot fathom, let alone fix. The law is a hammer, not a scalpel.”- Defending Jacob, William Landley |
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney for two decades. He is respected. Admired in the courtroom. Happy at home with the loves of his life: his wife, Laurie, and their teenage son, Jacob.
Then Andy’s quiet suburb is stunned by a shocking crime: a young boy stabbed to death in a leafy park. And an even greater shock: The accused is Andy’s own son—shy, awkward, mysterious Jacob.
Andy believes in Jacob’s innocence. Any parent would. But the pressure mounts. Damning evidence. Doubt. A faltering marriage. The neighbors’ contempt. A murder trial that threatens to obliterate Andy’s family.
It is the ultimate test for any parent: How far would you go to protect your child? It is a test of devotion. A test of how well a parent can know a child. For Andy Barber, a man with an iron will and a dark secret, it is a test of guilt and innocence in the deepest sense.
How far would you go?
Then Andy’s quiet suburb is stunned by a shocking crime: a young boy stabbed to death in a leafy park. And an even greater shock: The accused is Andy’s own son—shy, awkward, mysterious Jacob.
Andy believes in Jacob’s innocence. Any parent would. But the pressure mounts. Damning evidence. Doubt. A faltering marriage. The neighbors’ contempt. A murder trial that threatens to obliterate Andy’s family.
It is the ultimate test for any parent: How far would you go to protect your child? It is a test of devotion. A test of how well a parent can know a child. For Andy Barber, a man with an iron will and a dark secret, it is a test of guilt and innocence in the deepest sense.
How far would you go?
This is a legal thriller technically but is really more of a family drama with a lot of courthouse scenes. In fact, it strikes me as a male version of a Jodi Picoult novel, more specifically the one about the boy with Asperger's who is accused of murder. I suppose you could call it a housewife or Book Club thriller because I can imagine those demographics being the ones the most likely to pick up Defending Jacob.
The thing that really makes Defending Jacob stand out is just how much I hated the narrator. It is rare that I say this, but if I were to meet Andy Barber in real life, I would despise him. He was just so... obnoxious that I wanted to slap him. You know the stereotype of the arrogant male that feminists like to trot out? He's basically the embodiment of that stereotype.
In a lot of ways, he reminded me of a male version of those Martyr Mom characters I hate so much. On the surface, he'd seem like the kind of dad you'd want to have defending you, but dig a little deeper and it's clear he's just doing it for himself. The whole reason why he cares so much about his son being a murderer is because that reflects badly on him, not because he's worried about his son being in prison.
The biggest problem I found with the book, though, is not Andy. It's the fact that the author works off the idea that we believe as much as Andy did that Jacob is innocent and so as the evidence builds against Jacob, we are shocked and begin to see the prosecution's side. The problem with that is that I never saw Jacob as being innocent in the first place. Landley never gave us a reason to not suspect Jacob, except that Andy Barber "knows his son". I once watched a show on the ID channel in which they were talking to this little old lady, who was the mother of a quite prolific serial killer. She swore that her son had nothing to do with the crimes, even though it was obvious to everyone he committed those killings. My point is, parents don't really know their kids.
There is some good in this novel that held me back from absolutely hating it. I was amused by Landley's ability to mimic the way teenage girls speak, with lots of you knows and likes and all those great teenager-isms. I also really liked Laurie as a character and wished there was more focus on her and her thoughts about Jacob. I also liked the ending a lot and wished it wasn't just a twist.
I think the main reason why this book doesn't really work as well as Picoult novels do is the absence of alternating POVs. Yes, I am advocating more multiple POVs, but hear me out. The thing that makes Picoult books interesting is that we get all sides of the story, and that's what fleshes the characters out. In this book, we just get Andy Barber's very one-dimensional view of everyone. All that means is that I feel bad for characters like the prosecutor, who was really getting shit on for no reason.
Defending Jacob was easy to read, but in the end, I did not like it all that much. I wouldn't say I hated it, it's fluffy and I don't usually hate those kinds of books. I would say it raised some interesting questions about the idea of a genetic predisposition to murder, but I kind of knew that something like that exists- a lot of personality is inherited; check out twin studies if you don't believe me. It's on the lower mediocre side for me, I think.
4.5 out of 10
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