Saving Noah
by Lucinda Berry
DESCRIPTION
A mother's love is supposed to be unconditional.
But what if it shouldn't be?
Noah is the boy everyone admires—an honor student, a champion swimmer, a hometown success story. Until he confesses to sexually abusing young girls during swim practice. In a single moment, his future evaporates, and his family shoulders the fallout.
After eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center, Noah returns home. But the town recoils, and his father refuses to let him back into their family's life. Noah's mom, Adrianne, is forced into an impossible role: the mother of a child no one believes deserves saving.
Loving Noah means losing everything else—her marriage, her community, and her certainty about right and wrong. As devastating truths emerge, Adrianne must confront the darkest question of all: when does standing by your child become a betrayal of everyone around you?
Brutally honest and deeply unsettling, Saving Noah explores one of society's last untouchable taboos and the terrifying gray area between compassion and accountability. This gripping, emotional novel by bestselling author Lucinda Berry refuses easy answers and will keep readers up late at night questioning beliefs they once thought were true.
Link to purchase the book
MY THOUGHTS
Lucinda Berry is a new author to me, and her book, Saving Noah, had a profound emotional impact on me. This domestic thriller delves into the complexities of family dynamics and raises deeply uncomfortable questions that will resonate with many parents.
Noah is seventeen years old and has confessed something horrifying: he molested two young girls during swim practice. Noah is an expert swimmer, and teaching young swimmers seemed like the perfect job for him. His actions lead to him being sent to a juvenile rehabilitation facility, where the staff are confident that their treatment program will prevent their young clients from repeating their offenses. Noah’s mother, Adrienne, believes in Noah - and in the facility’s ability - to help her damaged son somehow become “better.”
The thing about Adrienne is that she simply cannot believe her brilliant, loving son could do something like this. Noah will be in the facility for eighteen months, and Adrienne plans to work alongside him every single day. When he is discharged, she desperately looks for some semblance of “normal” in Noah - even at the cost of her marriage and the time and attention she gives to her young daughter.
This was not a book I could read in one sitting. I had to take breaks. I had to step away and hold back my emotions. As a mother - and as a grandmother - it was impossible not to imagine what I would do if this were someone in my own family.
A mother’s job is to love unconditionally. But does that ever change when the unspeakable happens with your child? Does acceptance equal forgiveness?
These are clearly the questions that plague Adrienne, and they will undoubtedly plague the reader as well. How should Noah be handled? Is rehabilitation possible? What happens when the consequences of his actions affect the entire family?
And perhaps the most difficult question of all: Can two things be true at the same time? Can a young man be kind, intelligent, and well-liked - and still have committed something monstrous? Can he be both a child and someone capable of causing unimaginable harm?
Saving Noah is an incredibly difficult book to read, but it is also one that makes you think long after you turn the final page. And just when you think you have a handle on the story, Lucinda Berry throws in a hard twist that changes the way you look at everything that came before. I won’t say more because discovering it for yourself is part of the experience. This is a thought-provoking, emotionally charged story that will stay with me for a long time.
Many thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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