Monday, December 5, 2011

Lost December - Richard Paul Evans

Title: Lost December: a novel
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Pages: 346
Published: 2011
Genre: Christmas, Fiction
Rating: 4/5

When Luke Crisp graduates from business school, his father, CEO and co-founder of Fortune 500 Crisp's Copy Centers, is ready to share some good news: he wants to turn the family business over to his son. But Luke has other plans. Taking control of his trust fund, Luke leaves home to pursue a life of reckless indulgence.

But when his funds run out, so do his friends. Humbled, alone, and too ashamed to ask his father for help, Luke secretly takes a lowly job at one his father's copy centers. There he falls in love with a struggling single mother and begins to understand the greatest source of personal joy. (via jacket flap)


Thoughts: I really enjoyed this one.  The story takes the story of the prodigal son and gives it a modern twist.  I found it to be a little too simplistic and a little too straightforward, but I guess if somebody is basing a fictional story on a biblical tale, it usually is a little more straightforward than if one is developing one's own storyline, but for some reason I never found East of Eden to be that straightforward, even though it is also based on the biblical story of Cain and Able.  But I digress.

One thing that I thought that could have been improved upon was that there could have been a little more conflict between Luke and Rachael and more time spent on it; felt that it was rather rushed and it felt as though they resolved whatever issues they had rather quickly and probably a little too quickly for my liking.  I realize that its supposed to be a book that is meant to be read fairly quickly and therefore doesn't go into much depth, but I felt that issues that they had was dealt with fairly quickly, even though it felt like it was a huge betrayal for Rachael to discover; just felt that he could have added a few more pages and dealt with the conflict in regards to the text message a little more and have them discuss it a little more than they did at the end, not that I didn't understand where the author was coming from.

If you have read the other Christmas books by Evans, you will enjoy this one and even if you haven't read his other books, you will also like this warm-hearted tale.

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