The Last Child

I ran 5 miles in 44:02 today. I will take tomorrow off. On Saturday I plan to run 9 miles and 17.5 miles on Sunday.

I am switching gyms. My current gym added $15 to my monthly fee without telling me because I had the option to go to other locations. This option was free for the first year. I have never been to any other locations. When I complained about my rates increasing without any notice, they cancelled my membership rather than offer to remove the additional charge. Very poor customer service.

My new gym which I will start on Monday does not have all the bells and whistles but is singificantly cheaper. I typically only use the treadmill, ellipical and rowing machines so I don't need anything too fancy.

The Last Child

I enjoyed the previous book by John Hart, Down River which I discussed on May 21st. I was looking forward to his new book, The Last Child, but it turn out to be a jumbled mess.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312359322/ref=s9_simb_gw_xu_s0_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0JMMNC1ED4AZ57HJEFVM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

I read most of it at the beach. The book seemed like it had a good premise, but went astray with too much symbolism and coincidence. The description of the book gave me the impression that it would be about the relationship between the two main characters, the boy Johnny Merrimon and the policy detective Clyde Hunt, but Hunt spent much of the book trying to find the boy. I think that the book would have worked much better if it focused more on Hunt helping Johnny deal with the disappearance of his twin sister and the resulting destruction of his family.

There was way too much symbolism and religious connotations. The whole Freemantle character and the relationship between the Merrimon and Freemantle ancestors completely did not work.

There was too many side stories that added up to make this a mess. Johnny was always taking car keys and driving off. Why did people keep leaving cars keys out where he could get them? This book was really a disaster.

I liked the twist at the end that the sister was killed as a random accident and not sexually assualted. However, that Hunt's son was involved was too coincidental. That Johnny's best friend knew what happened the entire time really did not fit with his character and that Johnny would forgive him, made no sense.

This book got a lot of positive review at Amazon. It really makes me question whether these real reviews or whether people with an interest in the books success, put fake reviews up to help sales.

I give The Last Child a D.