nikko wilkerson

*spoilers* When I initially started reading this book I was genuinely expecting it to be one of my favorite reads of the year based on the overall good reviews and emotional responses people had to it. I WAS WRONG. Things started going south when the book veered away from its original concept of the 4 main friends and began only focusing on adding trauma after trauma to one singular character. It was honestly so over the top that I found it laughable. I'm someone who gets emotional easily but I did not shed a single tear while reading this. I kept reading this to the very end hopeful the story would someone redeem itself and harness emotional value, but the ending was flat and predictable and I was left unmoved. The sheer amount of trauma Jude experienced was unrealistic, I was to make a point that QUANTITY DOES NOT MAKE SOMETHING BETTER!!! Adding a shitload of trauma into one story does not increase the emotional value which is why I think this book left me unfulfilled. By the halfway point of the book it seemed like the author just wanted to keep the reader interested by adding new "mysterious trauma" that the reader had yet to uncover. At first it was "What happened at the monastery" "Who is Dr. Traylor" and it began getting repetitive. When Willem died I was so numb at that point I didn;t even care. The rest of the book was even more dreadful it went on and on and more characters die, and then it all ends in misery. Jude kills himself ,the end! There is no moral to the story, no emotional lesson, just one long book that goes on and on with insane trauma sprinkled in.