Sunday, June 02, 2013

THE EXECUTION OF NOA P. SINGLETON

Author:  Elizabeth Silver
Genre:  Fiction, Standalone
Published:  2013
Personal Rating:  3/5 (just okay)
Format:  eBook
Yearly Count:  41


From NetGalley:

A beguiling debut novel about the stories we tell ourselves to survive, the scars that never fade and the things we choose to call the truth.

Noa P. Singleton speaks not a word in her own defense throughout a brief trial that ends with a jury finding her guilty of first-degree murder. Ten years later, a woman who will never know middle age, she sits on death row in a maximum security penitentiary, just six months away from her execution date.

Seemingly out of the blue, she is visited by Marlene Dixon, a high-powered Philadelphia attorney who is also the heartbroken mother of the woman Noa was imprisoned for killing. She tells Noa that she has changed her mind about the death penalty and Noa’s sentence, and will do everything in her considerable power to convince the governor to commute the sentence to life in prison – if Noa will finally reveal what led her to commit her crime.

Noa and Marlene become inextricably linked through the law, shared sentiments of guilt, and irreversible mistakes in an unapologetic tale of love, anguish, and deception that is as unpredictable as it is magnificently original.

 I really enjoyed the path the novel took me on and felt compelled to read it; however, I never felt satisfied.  I was riding on hope for something really exciting or shocking to happen, and it never transpired.  It would have been a terrific book had that happened.  

I didn't really like Noa, but I was intrigued enough to hear her story.  Her choices were baffling to me.  I didn't agree with or even understand some of them.  Overall, I'm not even sure what the author wants us to take away from reading it.  In general, the plot was a great idea, but it wasn't executed to its fullest potential (no pun intended).   






My thanks go to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this eGalley.  It is scheduled to be published on June 11.

4 comments:

  1. It actually sounds like this would be a good book for a book club to discuss.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bermudaonion ~ I think you're right. :)

      Delete
  2. I'm sorry that you never fully enjoyed this read! ;(

    ReplyDelete

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