I don't remember who recommended Barbara Gowdy to me, but this book has been on my TBR list for a while. I finally got around to reading it, and while Gowdy's prose is good, I felt like some of the characters (the mom in particular) were under-developed. I knew that

Spoiler

child endangerment was at the heart of the book, but the way Gowdy seemed to be trying to get the reader to understand and maybe not hate the predator was... icky.

I closed the last page of this and said, "Yuck." So, be advised!

The viewpoints and intentions of four different people collide in this tale exploring self-delusion and love.

It was a pretty light read considering it was about the abduction of a little girl.
I really liked Gowdy's White Bone and The Romantic. This one was comparatively slight - a rainy afternooner.

One of those strange books where you never really know which character you side with, at some points I found all the characters incredibly frustrating and at others terribly sorry for one or the other.

The writing style is very engaging and the story an interesting one but I felt rather letdown when I got to the end.

One of my main issues is that it was as if the writer suddenly realised she needed to end the book, the last few pages felt incredibly rushed in relation to the detail present in the rest of the book. The ending did not leave me at all satisfied, there were so many answered questions and wondering what happened afterwards. I was prepared to give the book a four star rating had it not been for the letdown end.

I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as The Romantic, but it was still a good read, considering the discomforting themes.

2.5 STARS

"Nine-year-old Rachel Fox has the face of an angel, a heart-stopping luminosity that strikes all who meet her. Her single mother, Celia, working at a video store by day and a piano bar by night, is not always around to shield her daughter from the attention—both benign and sinister—that her beauty draws. Attention from model agencies, for example, or from Ron, a small-appliance repairman who, having seen Rachel once, is driven to see her again and again.
When a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, Rachel is taken from her home. A full-scale search begins, but days pass with no solid clues, only a phone call Celia receives from a woman whose voice she has heard before but cannot place. And as Celia fights her terror and Rachel starts to trust in her abductor's kindness, the only other person who knows where she is wavers between loyalty to the captor and saving the child. Will Rachel be found before her abductor's urge to protect and cherish turns to something altogether less innocent?" (From Amazon)

This novel is very well-written and a good plot. It has been awhile so I cannot completely remember the story but I enjoyed this novel. It has not made me run out and grab another novel though.

I'm not very far into this one but the summary pretty much tells the whole story. Where's the suspense in that? Child will be abducted by a pedophile. Will he give into his urges? I'll skip to the last chapter and let you know.

Helpless by Barbara Gowdy

Read Full Review at www.lifeloveliteratureclub.wordpress.com

This is an uncomfortable, heartbreaking and sometimes hard to read story but I enjoyed it and found myself flying through it, wanting to know Rachel's fate.

Helpless tells the story of Celia, and her beautiful nine year old daughter, Rachel. One summer night, there is a blackout in their neighborhood in Toronto. It is on that night that Rachel is taken by a man named Ron and kept in his basement, which he has renovated into a little girls dream bedroom. Ron's motivation for kidnapping Rachel is that he thinks she is being "abused" by her mother and the men in their lives.

This story is told from multiple POVs, which I enjoyed. My heart broke for Rachel and Celia and
I hated when she started liking Ron. There were times I almost put the book down. Without giving anything else away, I loved the ending. It was better than I had hoped for and what I had predicted.

I appreciate Gowdy for writing such a controversial and heartbreaking novel and taking us into our own fears. I will definitely be reading more of her work!

I have to admit that I found the book to be disappointing. It wasn't bad, but it didn't make me feel anything. The motions in the book were quite subdued, considering the subject matter. The story is about the abduction of a little girl. The reader is gven insights into the world of the suffering mother, and that of the abductor. I guess the author's point is to make you see that there are unknown motives behind everything. I don't theing she wants the reader to "empathize" with the abductor, but she does want the reader to understand the man's motives behind his behaviours. And to understand that he isn't unkind or malicious. As a mother, however, I had a hard time getting past the fact that he had abducted a child. I wanted him punished. And he wasn't -- at least not enough for my satisfaction.

I reviewed the ARC for the Harper Collins First Read program. Here's what I submitted, although they didn't use it. I'm not surprised.

In her latest novel, Gowdy takes on a near-impossible task by challenging readers to find, if not empathy then understanding, for a child abductor. She creates damaged characters with a deft hand so that their altered reality almost seems normal and understandable. What I found particularly effective -- and disturbing -- was the way she portrayed the unforgiving public -- a public who finds it easier to find fault and blame in the suffering mother rather than peer into the dark recesses of a society that produces men who steal children and women too frightened to stop them.