Welcome back for another review.
This review will be about a book called Palindrome by Stuart Woods (if you didn't gather that from the title). I feel like this is a lesser known book, like not a lot of people know about it, I certainly didn't when I found this book sitting on a shelf in a store. This book deserves more credit than that! I without a doubt loved this book! What a story!!
So, to start with, Palindrome is about a woman, Elizabeth (Liz) Barwick, who has been repeatedly assaulted by her husband, who is a famous pro football player. For the last time, Liz takes herself to a hospital after a brutal beating from her husband where she would be saved from death. After that Liz retreats to an island off of the coast of Georgia to find some solitude and herself.
Throughout time Liz becomes involved with a twin of the Drummond family and starts to feel her traumatic memories fade. But then horrific murders start to occur and Liz is no longer safe on the island, even in the arms of her lover...
From the very start of the novel I was hooked, like from the prologue. It was that good! I found the story to be intriguing and found myself wanting to know what happened to Liz after she left the hospital. I love how it went straight into the story, it took no time for any background knowledge. It dove right into the beginning. I love when an author does this, they spend no time telling the readers any back story and reveals bits when it is needed. I find that when authors don't do this, I find myself bored. Sure back story, in some cases, is good but if I don't find it interesting I will find myself wanting to put the book down. Palindrome didn't do that.
The pace of the narrative was something I loved, not going too fast or too slow. I do have to admit though that towards the end of the novel I felt that that author was trying to make it longer by dragging the ending out over a few chapters. Other than this I had no problem with pacing or any of the writing.
Something I feel the author focuses a lot throughout the narrative is the theme domestic violence. It is something that happens in this world and I don't feel like a lot of women speak up about whether they are being abused by their partner or not. And it's just not the females! Males can also be abused by their partner, but not many of them speak up because people think it is a joke. Whether the person getting abused is male or female, domestic violence is a big problem in todays society and it happens.
I feel Woods brings awareness to domestic violence as he writes about Liz being abused by her husband. Domestic violence is a topic that is hard to discuss and Palindrome does, what I think, a good job in showing that a person doesn't have to continue getting abused, that there is a way out of it by seeking help.
There was one thing I didn't like about this though. I felt like this was a very typical domestic abuse story in novels. If I reveal much about this then I will be giving spoilers and I want this review to be spoiler free. So I'm not going to say much about how it is a typical domestic abuse story and I will let you to do that yourself.
Apart from that and the slow pacing towards the end I really enjoyed this read. Because of the issues I had, I rated the book 4 out of 5 stars.
I really hope that some of you guys will decide to pick up this book. It isn't horror, it is more of a mystery thriller, but nothing scary happens in it.
Happy reading everyone.
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