Sail - James Patterson

When we went on holiday this year in April, I expected to be staying for a week. However, courtesy of Iceland and its volcano spurting a giant ash cloud over Europe, we found ourselves staying for thirteen days. There were not very many of us staying at the hotel so we all easily became good friends and we decided that we would a swap books as few of us had brought enough reading matter to last the extra days, and since we were advised not to leave the hotel in case of updates, there was little else to do except lounge by the pool and read (whilst sampling the free all inclusive bar!) I swapped some trashy (but very readable) chick lit for something of a completely different genre and I ended up with Sail and I think that I got quite a good deal!

Sail is by James Patterson and Howard Roughan. I have read material by Patterson in the past and enjoyed it, but this was my first experience of a novel by the two authors together so I was expecting there to be some continuity issues, fortunately there were not any and the storyline developed simply and seamlessly.

Synopsis

The plot of the book is nothing out of the ordinary in my opinion. We are introduced to the Dunne family with a brief note about each member of the family at the very start of the book. From each description, it is easy for the reader to build up an impression of a wealthy but dysfunctional family who have lost their connection with one another (after the untimely death of their father) and lost their zest for life. The mother, Katherine Dunne who has since remarried the slick lawyer Peter Carlyle, decides that a boat trip with her three children on the family yacht would bring them closer together, so, captained by the children's uncle Jake (the brother of Katherine's deceased husband) the five of them set off on what the reader already knows to be an ill fated journey.

Characters

I feel as though I got to know each of the characters very well in this book. The brief descriptions of each member of "the crew" really helped me to understand why each character acted in the ways that they did throughout the book and the authors kept true to their natures until the end. Other characters that popped up within the book were all crucial to the story line, and it was also very easy to understand each of their actions.

Patterson and Roughan did not spend any time at all giving physical descriptions of the characters, but I do not feel as though I needed any and I built up a good picture of each character in my mind's eye without needing any description - I guess this is through excellent writing skills and years of experience.

My thoughts

The book is divided into six parts (excluding the prologue and the epilogue) and there is a total of 125 chapters which I feel is far too many. A lot of the chapters are less than two pages long, which I think divides up the book unnecessarily; I do not feel that a chapter change was necessary most of the time, and generally speaking a new paragraph would have sufficed.

As the Dunne family lurch from one disaster to another, the reader should really feel a sense of shock and horror, but partly because of the punctuation used; this did not come across very well at all. Far too many exclamation marks are utilised to the point that it became almost a joke rather than thrilling, but this is also what kept it light and easy to read. Also in times of fear, the characters often made a joke which completely took away the suspense and made me think that it was a bit silly. Having said all of that, this is a suspense thriller and although at times the storyline becomes slightly unrealistic and even though there are a fair amount of holes, it somehow kept me gripped and I was unable to put it down. There is nothing deep and heavy about it, in fact, it is somewhat shallow in places but that was what made it so easy to read!

All questions are answered by the end of the book, and everything is wrapped up very nicely. The ending was what I was expecting, but we got there in a way that was totally unexpected which made a pleasant change to what was otherwise an enjoyable yet averagely predictable novel.

Over all I really enjoyed this book. It's sheer simplicity made it a very readable novel, and I feel as though the characters developed nicely. I could very much connect with the mother and the way that she wanted to bring her family closer together and I sympathised when it all started to fall apart. I would recommend this book if you are looking for something easy to read, and as a holiday novel it is perfect because you can read it without stopping or it is easy to put down and get back into at a later time. It is not a gritty thrilling read, but it ticks a lot of boxes and I have certainly read a lot worse.

ISBN 9780099538882 (2008)

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