Book Review: Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry

This book had me feeling every emotion ever.

I recently finished Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry in just a few days, and oh my gosh the emotions it made me feel.

What the book is about:

I want to start by stating this book is one giant trigger warning. It contains sexual assault of children, violence, suicide, death, and honestly there are multiple graphic vomiting scenes. As someone with a puke phobia, I didn’t think written vomit scenes could illicit a shudder out of me but I have been proven incorrect on that one.

Adrianne and Lucas have two children, Noah, 15, and Katie, 5. They reside outside of Chicago in a nice little town where Adrianne takes pride in being a heavily involved parent to her two children. This book is about Noah, a straight A, popular, star swimming student who commits a horrendous crime against two little girls while coaching the peewee swim team.

He admits what he’s done to his parents, and from there a series of events unfolds regarding their son and the consequences of his actions.

Why this book is great (in my opinion)

I enjoyed this book because it didn’t follow Noah directly, even though we did get some chapters from his point of view to see what he was going through.

This book is told mostly from Adrianne’s point of view and how she feels as a mother dealing with what her son has done. It shows us not only the consequences for Noah’s actions, but also the consequences of Adrianne’s actions and how she handles what her son did. Especially when she so outwardly loves her children, especially Noah, more than life itself.

My thoughts

My biggest take away from this was how disgusted I was by Noah (OBVIOUSLY) throughout this book, but then how absolutely shocked I was that this author, with her words, was able to ACTUALLY make me feel sympathy for this boy between his ages of 15 and 17, when the book ends, even though he was a admittedly a pedophile. (I know that sounds crazy but if you read it you’ll see what I mean!)

I found Adrianne to be unbelievably insufferable, but by the end my emotions shifted on that- and don’t even get me started on Lucas. I don’t want to ruin it by giving away too many spoilers, but I think there was a lot insinuated at the very end. Things that weren’t explicitly said but that evidence could point to being a thing that exists.

I love that this book was written by a practicing/experienced child trauma psychologist, because a lot of what was said was news to me and coming from a reliable source. It’s also independantly published, and doing very well according to Amazon’s standards.

It’s not for the faint of heart, so if you’re easily triggered by drugs, suicide, or child trauma, please tread carefully.