Jussi Valtonen | THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

Plot (via Amazon):

Joe Chayefski has got what he always wanted: a reputation as one of America's top neuroscientists, a beautiful wife and two perfect daughters. But his carefully created idyll is threatened when his Baltimore neuroscience lab is targeted by animal rights activists. The attack is followed by a phone call from Joe's ex-wife in Finland. Two decades have passed since he abandoned Alina and their young son, Samuel, returning to America to advance his career. Now Samuel is somewhere in the States, and Alina fears he is looking for revenge.

As Joe struggles to protect his new family from the increasing threat of violence – and to save his eldest daughter from the clutches of an unscrupulous tech company – he is forced to reconsider his priorities and take drastic action to save those he loves.

Review:

So, this one is going to be sweet and short. This was 100% not the read for me. I will tell you, the writing is fantastic and the characters were really well-written. So here we have it...

The Good: The plot to this one was definitely unique and Valtonen has a way with just taking a complex and story unlike any other and weaving it into this crazy mountain of multiple storylines and really showing the different changes the characters make throughout the amount of time we get to hear their perspectives. Another thing I really enjoyed was how much thought and consideration went into the ideas, actions, and decisions with these three main characters. It was so interesting to see the difference in Alina and Joe's relationship in the past and present time and how different each of them had become. I also liked the perspective of Samuel later on in the novel.

The Bad: This one started off solid for me and then started to get confusing and shall I say, too high-tech for me? While the plot seemed like something that I could really get behind, I was a little disappointed that I was expecting a psychological thriller and this was more of a techno-savvy...drama? I just had a hard time following the plot as there was honestly times where too much was going on and then a ton of times where there just wasn't anything going on at all and way too much detail and backstory was being put into play. At around page 300, I started to get more into it and the last almost 200 pages went by a lot faster, but at the end of the day, 300 pages is way too much for me to suffer through to get to the good stuff.

The Ugly: While this is a whopper of a novel at almost 500 pages, this one really fell flat for me and I honestly would have liked it more if it had been shortened to about 250. The plot was interesting, the characters phenomenal, and the writing was spectacular. However, this was just was not the read for me and did not hold my interest for very long. Things definitely heat up towards the end, but the ending was just too "there" for me. Definitely not something I would recommend, unfortunately.

*I received this copy from Oneworld Publications in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 2/5