Dreaming Big
  • Home
    • Staff
    • Members Only
  • Contact
  • Our Books
    • Non Fiction
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Children's Books
    • Audio Books
  • Coming Soon
  • Blog
  • Opportunities
    • Call For Submissions
    • Submissions Guidelines
    • FAQ
  • Gifts and More

Fiction Book Review for ‘The Murderer’s Daughter’ by Jonathan Kellerman

8/22/2015

0 Comments

 



 

Grace Blades is a child born and raised for the first few years in a trailer park by parents who neglected her in many ways and were physically abusive to her.  In a substance-induced rage one fateful day, her mother slits her father’s throat with a knife and then stabs herself in the belly in a murders-suicide.  Grace ends up in the foster care system in one bad home after another.  She gets switched around often because the foster parents take on special needs children which means they get more money.  Therefore, since she is a good and quiet child, she keeps having to move around because she doesn’t bring her foster parents in as much money. 

In a Cinderella-type ending, Grace ends up being adopted by a rich couple who helped shaper her career decision to be a psychologist because her adopted father was a psychologist. She does quite well for herself in her private practice, and that is helped a lot by the fact that when her adopted parents died they left her a millionaire.  I personally wasn’t a fan of this overdone Cinderella twist and felt that it took a lot away from the book.  When a murderer is after Grace it made it all together too easy for her to hide and plan a counterattack.  She spends money without even caring how much it is costing.  Hotel rooms, dinners, fancy wigs and other accoutrements, car rentals.  I think if she had been poor and had to struggle to afford things then it would’ve made her search for who was after her much more interesting.

Despite this drawback, Kellerman once again delivers a psychological thriller like none other.  With his own background in psychology, Kellerman is able to give the reader a more rounded character with a lot more insight into her psyche and the psyche of those around her.  At one point in the book I thought Grace was a psychopath and I enjoyed the questions that this raised in my mind of nature versus nurture.  Grace has psychopathic qualities when it is mentioned several times in the book that she watched how others reacted to situations and then copied their smiles or other expressions and comments so that she would appear more socially acceptable and “normal”.  However, I came to the conclusion that Grace’s emotional growth had been severely stunted by her upbringing.  Although she is genius-level book smart, her early and long-term childhood emotional neglect left her stunted in this area.  The development of Grace was perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book to me because it appealed to my own psych training.  Overall, well done, and I would definitely recommend this book to others to read.

 

Disclaimer:  I received a free ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Challenge Participant
    Parajunkee Design
    I review for BookLook Bloggers
    Professional Reader
    Book Reviewer Sign Up

    1888PressRelease
    YA Bound Book Tours

Services

Ask A Therapist
Blog
Our Books
Coming Soon

Company

About Us
Staff
​

Support

Contact
FAQ

Find and follow us on social media 
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.