Arc Review: Golden Child

ABL Review At-A-Glance

Ø Title: Golden Child

Ø My Rating: 4.25

Ø Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary

Ø Author:
Claire Adam

Ø Format:
Hardcover ARC*

Ø Publication Date: January 29, 2019

Compare to:

Goodreads Synopsis

from my pinterest @buckeye_gal4books

A deeply affecting debut novel set in Trinidad, following the
lives of a family as they navigate impossible choices about scarcity, loyalty,
and love

Rural Trinidad: a brick house
on stilts surrounded by bush; a family, quietly surviving, just trying to live
a decent life. Clyde, the father, works long, exhausting shifts at the
petroleum plant in southern Trinidad; Joy, his wife, looks after the home.
Their two sons, thirteen years old, wake early every morning to travel to the
capital, Port of Spain, for school. They are twins but nothing alike: Paul has
always been considered odd, while Peter is widely believed to be a genius,
destined for greatness.

When Paul goes walking in the
bush one afternoon and doesn’t come home, Clyde is forced to go looking for
him, this child who has caused him endless trouble already, and who he has
never really understood. And as the hours turn to days, and Clyde begins to
understand Paul’s fate, his world shatters–leaving him faced with a decision
no parent should ever have to make.

Like the Trinidadian
landscape itself, Golden Child is both beautiful and unsettling; a resoundingly
human story of aspiration, betrayal, and love.

My Thoughts…

One of the greatest things about reading is
being transported to a completely different place, especially a place you are
unlikely to ever get the chance to see in person. Though I would love to believe I will get to
go everywhere that I want, I have to be realistic. So, I feel particularly lucky that I was given
the chance to read Golden Child.

Some books are about the plot, some books are
about the characters, whereas, for me, Golden
Child was about Trinidad. Not only
the geographic location, but its people.
The culture was so vivid throughout this book that I felt like I was
given a small glimpse of life there. In
one novel, Claire Adam was able to explore the intersection of race, religion,
sex, politics, and the economy in a country many of us can only imagine. The
author does a wonderful job weaving a compelling, gritty story into a
beautifully vibrant landscape.

I wish that the characters, beyond Paul, were
explored further. I wanted to have the
same emotional connection with Peter, Joy, and even Clyde, that I had with
Paul. I wanted to feel and understand the
impact of the book’s events from each perspective, but Golden Child leaves a
lot of the emotion up to the reader’s imagination.

The beauty of this story is its observation
about how small things have huge impacts, especially words. In everyday life, there are moments when we
all say things that we don’t consider important. We make observations, state opinions, judge
our surroundings, without ever noticing or appreciating the power inherent in our
words. Sometimes, what is said is meaningless
and forgotten, and our statements join a long list of forgotten moments. Sometimes,
however, our words resonate. As if
words, once spoken, have the ability to seep into someone’s memory and become a
part of their identity, whether true or not. It’s a huge responsibility we all
have that very few of us even recognize.

I hope you get the opportunity to read Golden
Child. I can promise that the story will
stick with you long after you close the pages.

* Special thanks to Claire Adam, SJP for Hogarth, and TLC
Book Tours for providing a copy of Golden Child in exchange for an honest review.