Release Day- Bradstreet Gate by Robin Kirman Review
Plot Summary
Georgia, Charlie and Alice each arrive at Harvard with hopeful visions of what the future will hold. But when, just before graduation, a classmate is found murdered on campus, they find themselves facing a cruel and unanticipated new reality. Moreover, a charismatic professor who has loomed large in their lives is suspected of the crime. Though his guilt or innocence remains uncertain, the unsettling questions raised by the case force the three friends to take a deeper look at their tangled relationship. Their bond has been defined by the secrets they’ve kept from one another—Charlie’s love and Alice’s envy, Georgia’s mysterious affair—and over the course of the next decade, as they grapple with the challenges of adulthood and witness the unraveling of a teacher’s once-charmed life, they must reckon with their own deceits and shortcomings, each desperately in search of answers and the chance to be forgiven.
Review
This book is well written but I find myself wishing that I would like it. The plot summary sets the book up as a murder mystery but the book fell flat in so many levels. The book began 10 years after a student by the name of Julie Patel was found dead on Bradstreet Gate that would change the lives of Georgia, Charlie, Alice and Professor Rufus Storrow. We are introduced to the three main characters Georgia, Charlie and Alice in their present lives intertwined with flashbacks. The thing that confuses me the most is that the murder of Julie Patel which seems to me (based on the plot summary) is the main point of the book wasn't brought up all that much. After reading the whole book I still have no clue who Julie is, why she was murdered and why Storrow was the only suspect.
The three main characters are not like-able people which wouldn't be a problem had each of them own strong story line, but not all of them did. Georgia was in a secretive relationship with Storrow, Charlie was in love with Georgia, while Alice was in love with Charlie. All three used Harvard as an opportunity to get away from their former lives and to re-invent themselves but found that the past is too strong of a bond to break. The book instead of being a murder mystery is more about what happens when things don't work out the way you expect and instead of a good murder mystery what I got was the innermost thoughts of three 30 year old's angst and disappointment.
I do feel the plot summary was misleading since it's not a murder mystery or even a mystery because there was no resolution. Personally for me it was a disappointment. The setting and writing were great but just wasn't my cup of tea.
Until next time,
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