Hold Tight
by Harlan Coben
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Book Reviews of Hold Tight
Book Review: Hold tight to what? (enter sarcasm here)
Summary: 3 Stars
Tia and Mike Baye are worried. Since the death of their son's best friend, Spencer, Adam has become withdrawn. Something's wrong, and Tia convinces Mike to have software installed on Adam's computer so that they can try to figure out what's wrong. Mike is uneasy with this decision, for they are invading their son's privacy. Would the lack of trust tear their family apart?
Tia prints out the report from Adam's computer and goes through it. The cryptic message - "just stay quiet an all safe" - is alarming to both, Tia and Mike. Stay quiet? Why? What's going on? They decide they have to do something. One e-mail on Adam's computer is talking about a party, a party that Mike and Tia do not want Adam attending. With the idea of stopping him, Mike tells Adam that they're going to a hockey game with, but Adam doesn't show up. He's taken off, and his parents are desperate to find him.
Tia and Mike's daughter, Jill, is friends with Yasmin Novak. Yasmin has become an angry and hurt little girl; her teacher, Joe Lewiston, made the mistake of singling her out in class, and now she is incessantly being made fun of.
Joe Lewiston is sorry for what he's done, no one understands how sorry. And now he's become jumpy, going so far as to change the password on his wife's e-mail account so that she doesn't see what's being sent to her.
Yasmin's father, Guy, has taken to driving by the Lewiston's home, slowing down as he goes by.
They Bayes neighbors are having a rough time. Their ten-year-old son is sick and needs a kidney transplant. Now, usually the father is the perfect match, but after tests are run, not only is he not a match, he isn't the biological father. What secret is Susan Loriman hiding?
Meanwhile, there's a killer out there who murdered two women; he's looking looking for answers.
**Where do I begin? The story started out strong. You learn who the characters are, what they do, their worries, their frustrations. You get that something's wrong. There's a mystery and suspense, and you're right with the parents as they search for their son.
All these story lines are connected, but it's the coincidences that I had a very hard time with. How everything's connected, by the smallest things, had me shaking my head. Unbelievable is what they were. Just when you think there's a grander scale, everything is put to small individual things being linked together and it was ridiculous! (and here I am repeating myself!) And the reader is made to believe it! That just made it all that much more absurd!
I have to admit, though, the main point was brought up as parents point of view and beliefs. How far would you go to protect your child? Would you spy on them? Would you do what they Bayes did? And what of the consequences should your child find out you invaded their privacy? At what point do you let them go? And should your child find out, how would you go about repairing the damage? I liked that part - it had me thinking of what I would do once my kids hit that age.
The mystery, as far as the Baye family was concerned, was excellent. The rest, to me, was filler. I wished that Mr. Coben had concentrated on that alone, the rest was distracting. Not a bad book, but not high on my list of recommendations.
Book Review: Compelling, well-written thriller dealing with family relationships
Summary: 4 Stars
Hold Tight might not be Harlan Coben's best book ever, but it's right up there. Like a literary version of the movie Crash, this book brings a series of seemingly unconnected--and disconcerting--storylines together in increasingly unexpected ways. As the characters and subplots draw closer together, Coben reveals clues with agonizing slowness, tantalizing the reader with glimpses of possibility before veering off in another direction. By the time all the stories have been brought to their unified and amazingly coherent conclusion, the only loose end that remains is the unsettling reality of the human condition.
Faced with a sudden decline in their 16-year-old son Adam's school performance after a friend's suicide, Mike and Tia Baye decide after some soul-searching to install a spyware device on Adam's computer. What they find is not reassuring. Meanwhile, their daughter Jill is dealing with a close friend's public humiliation after a teacher's mean-spirited comment. Their next-door neighbor's son has been diagnosed with a potential fatal kidney disorder. A woman with local ties dies violently. And when Adam disappears after a cryptic instant-message exchange suggesting a drug party, the Bayes must battle unanswered questions, unhelpful authorities, and unresolved family issues in their quest to find--and hopefully save--their son.
The book should be read with caution, as it contains lots of drug references, some minor language, and some inexplicit sexual content. But the real tension comes not from objectionable material but from the choices the characters face. Coben does a masterful job of allowing his characters to face real, difficult issues and deal with them in a variety of ways--some admirable, some most definitely not. If the book has an underlying moral theme, it seems to be "live and let live"; the question of whether it's appropriate for parents to spy on their children takes center stage for much of the story.
This is in some ways an uncomfortable book to read, as the central issues tend to detract from the sheer entertainment value. Nevertheless, Coben has succeeded in combining those issues with good writing and excellent pacing to form a true-to-life story that will stay in the back of readers' minds for a long time after the final page is read.
Book Review: A page-turning thriller with a personal touch
Summary: 4 Stars
Harlan Coben's recent novel, Hold Tight, once again demonstrate his mastery of the domestic thriller almost guaranteed to keep the reader awake in anticipation of the next page. This book moves at a rapid, adrenalin pumping pace that makes it difficult to put down or to forget. While the plot is not necessarily new, psycho enjoys hurting and killing people while teenager gets involved in a prescription drug scam, it is the personal expressions of parenting and relationship developments that give this book an edge over most thrillers. Having read every book by Harlan Coben, this reader considers Hold Tight to be one of his best.
The writing style, using a nice balance of dialog and third person perceptions, is concise without extraneous description and without excessive analysis. That stated, it is actually the descriptive moments of the people, their reactions to tragedy, and their concerns about their lives that seem to give this story a humanistic and compassionate dimension. Never pedantic, there are plenty of life's lessons that are interwoven throughout the story, giving the reader a sense of benefit from having spent time on the book. The many hints, secrets, and mysteries that surround the people, keep the story robust but also personal. Rather than simply looking for a positive conclusion, Hold Tight, allows the reader to identify and sympathize with the people whose lives are being affected by the events.
As the book came to the somewhat predictable, yet energetic conclusion, it became obvious that the story was actually about two parallel events that intersected through some of the people involved. At times, the book seemed to be two mini-novels, with two separate stories, and bringing the two ideas together was almost contrived and overly geometric. Furthermore, a few characters seems to have been developed early in the book, only to drop out near the end. We connected with some people, only to wonder what became of them.
From a literary standpoint, based on sentence structure, vocabulary, and design, this book nearly receives a three-star rating, but from a pure excitement level, it is easy to assign it five stars. Bringing those two criterion together gives us a four star rating and a strong recommendation for those who enjoy this genre.
Book Review: Hold Tight & Hang On To Your Hat!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been reading nothing but nonfiction lately so I needed a fiction fix. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of starting Hold Tight by Harlan Coben when I was riding home from an art competition. Big mistake.
As a result, the family had leftovers that night because I didn't want to put the book down. Even worse, I stayed up all night to finish it because once I was on that accelerating train, I couldn't put it down even though the subject matter, parental fear about the many things that can destroy a teen's life, isn't one of my favorite things to read. There's just too much crap in real life that can entrap a teen and destroy lives so it's not my idea of a fun entertainment.
The book pushed my buttons beginning with the back cover quote from the New York Times: "A thriller for the Google era." Yep. That did it. Ring up the sale. I like technological thrillers and mind-expanding ideas, and I usually learn something from them.
The interesting thing is that the book is a slow build. Sure, it begins with a hook that's just plain good writing. That leads to a horrific scene that let's you know real fast what you're in for yet it's nowhere near as graphic as any of the TV shows dealing with forensic evidence and crime scenes.
Then the story unfolds with increasing tension as a normal man copes with situations beyond his experience. A novel is characterized by rising motion, and this certainly can be described that way. You get locked into this man's emotional agony, and you root for him to save his kid.
My only quibble is that I'm not a big fan of coincidence which figures prominently in the book. I know the author was reaching for the subtlety of "6 degrees of separation" rather than coincidence. The average reader probably saw it as "6 degrees." We writers are just a more critical bunch, a fact which I wish wasn't true since it takes away some of the pleasure of reading.
You'll like the normal relationships expressed by the husband and wife who "star" in the book, and you'll be glad it's them going through the parental trial by fire, not you. Nothing beats a good book for engrossing entertainment, and Hold Tight is certainly that.
Book Review: Mystery or social critique in masquerade?
Summary: 3 Stars
I have mixed feelings about Hold Tight by Harlan Coben. Like most of his books it is well-written and the plot has a lot of depth. The story is fairly unique and for the most part I could believe it. However, that doesn't mean I enjoyed reading it much.
In Hold Tight, a suburban New Jersey couple (The Baye's) are concerned about their teenage son Adam. Since a friend of his died his behavior has changed and he is withdrawn. The Bayes decide to snoop on their son by secretly monitoring his computer. At the same time some of the Bayes neighbors are having marital problems or difficulties with their own kids.
In the meantime a weird man-woman team kidnaps and kills a middle aged woman, leaving her in an area frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers. What is the connection to the suburbanites? Eventually the trail leads to some creepy nightclubs in New York City and everyone's deep, dark secrets are exposed.
In the end the plot is not bad, but I just thought it was more of a social critique than a mystery. The author wanted to present everyone as pretending to be one thing in public, but actually being very troubled and angst ridden behind the scenes. I didn't have much empathy for the characters and the story was unsatisfying.