I absolutely loved this book! It was very well written. Despite the changing narrators and the jumps back and forth in time, this 700+ page novel flowed. Great character development. Since the characters were so well developed, I was emotionally invested in them, especially Jude, William and Harold. Sometimes I smiled while reading, occasionally laughed out loud, but more often than not, the emotion I felt was sadness. My sadness ran the gamut between being teary-eyed (merely blotting with a tissue) to openly and audibly weeping (tissue after tissue). This book was an emotional journey for me.
Since I work with people who have mental health issues - and try to support them as they attempt to manage their various mental health symptoms - I found Jude's trials in life intriguing, eye-opening and heartbreaking. I feel frustrated at times at my job because I just want to shake people and say, "You just need to ________!" I could insert a lot of words/phrases into that blank, like "take your meds"; "stop relying on your meds and actually WORK on managing your mental health"; "tell your doctor/therapist the truth"; "exercise"; "eat healthier"; "go to your job before you lose it". I could go on and on and on. This book allowed me to see inside Jude's head - and you could almost feel his pain. It was heart wrenching.
There is no one I loved more than William, although Andy and Harold were close seconds. Can you imagine supporting and loving someone like Jude all those years? They just absolutely never gave up on him. What really gave me food for thought though is Jude doing things for other people, even when he didn't want to, even when he hated it. Usually in life we know we have to compromise with people we love - meet them half way - or "gift them" with things/actions that make them happy just because it makes them happy, even though we don't feel like it or it doesn't interest us. When Jude did this however, it just made me sad. Jude felt such self-hatred, and he was so conditioned in childhood to "obey", that he did things because he felt he had to, not because he wanted to "give" something to someone else. I detested Brother Luke. Brother Luke was the only person who showed Jude any sort of love, yet it was such a twisted love. Brother Luke ignited Jude's intelligence and told him he was beautiful, yet he made him do such horrible things. I think Jude would have been better off with someone who just treated him as a prostitute working for his pimp, rather than a "lover". That's what messed Jude up so much.
Usually I talk about everything I want to in my blogs, not worrying about spoiling anything for other readers since I mention that there are spoilers in my reviews anyway. But I love this book so much that I am not going to talk about the part(s) that left me weeping. It's better that people just read it and "live it" like I did. This book will be joining my favorite books of all time list.
Wendy's Rating: *****
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