Review - Someone Else's Son by Sam Hayes

Summary of Book from Amazon.uk

A tense and powerful emotional thriller from Sam Hayes that asks: Do we ever really know our children?

'What would you do if your teenage son was stabbed to death at school?' That's a question chat-show host Carrie Kent can well imagine posing to any one of her studio guests. Her daily morning TV show deals with real life in all it's grubby glory - from underage sex to benefit swindlers, cheating partners to DNA testing. It's a million miles away from her perfect, polished existence. But when she gets a call to say that her beloved son Max has been murdered, Carrie and her ex-husband Brody will have to enter a world of poverty, fear and violence if they want to find out what really happened. And when the shocking truth is finally revealed, will they be able to live with it...?

My Review - 3 1/2 More Sugar Please

Sam Hayes is the mystery author version of Kristin Hannah and Jodi Picoult combined.  This book had everything, mystery, coming of age, parenting issues, bullying, violence...... all pulling on your emotions.  I think this is the perfect book for lovers of YA that want to try an adult novel or adults that enjoy fiction and want to venture into mystery.

Carrie was the most selfish, naive, foolish celebrity mom ever, she totally irritated me, I was unable to sympathise or have empathy for her.  She was a 'good' provider because she had the money, but was totally clueless and lacked the emotions needed to be a mom.  She considers herself to have the perfect life so when she is struck with having to deal head on with her life, her family she couldn't handle it.  She is a celebrity host, think trashy reality tv host type.  Her life becomes the guest she has on her show, sad reality.  I do think losing her son will make her a more genuine celebrity host.  In one scene she is talking to her son and says 'well I don't want to make you late for school' not realising Max had started vacation, 10 days in, how is that possible, unbelievable.  The perfect title 'Someone Else's Son'.

You know the feeling you have when watching children of different colour, race, culture playing with each other, completely immune to the prejudices of the world..... Max and Dayna had this with each other.  I loved their friendship, the hard and the great, not really knowing each other but loving each other for who they presented themselves to be.

It made you think about possible reasons Carrie and Brody divorced, the genuine love and then allowing prejudices to get in the way maybe.....  I felt like it was the apple that didn't fall from the tree.  They never admitted to failing each other which in the long run made them fail Max in the parenting aspect.

I liked Brody but would have liked to understand him more, why he did the things he did.

This was the perfect quote for the book.  

She thought back to when it was the three of them:  Brody, her, Max.  A happy family.

What were they now?  Blind, divorced, dead.

If you enjoy sad emotional reads with a touch of mystery you will love this one.  It was told in parts, the Incident, the Past and a year before the incident, leading up. 

My first experience with Sam Hayes was her book Tell Tell which I loved, my review is here.

Sam Hayes has offered to have giveaways of both of her books during Thrill Week.  Hope you come out to participate.