Like so many other reviews I’ve read on Canada, I was drawn to the book by the tag lines “First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.” The book was well recommended and reviewed so I had to try it out for myself. Well, I have come to regret that decision.
The theme of this book was: Adults suck sometimes. I was tempted to stop reading way too often. It was beyond dull. The main character is Dell Parsons. His parents rob a bank, therefore leaving him and his twin sister to figure out what to do. Well it turns out that the sister skips town and Dell’s mother sets up for him to be taken care of by a mysterious man in Canada (hence the name) named Arthur Remlinger. The book then fills up with mundane details, boring events, and an attempt to create sympathy (or pity) for Dell. Later it is revealed that Arthur has a dark past as well, which catches up to him during Dell’s stay. Unfortunately, the adults in his life just can’t get it right. Dell is forced to grow up quickly in a pseudo coming of age novel.
I didn’t like this book at all. Which is unfortunate, because it has the plot structure that should set up a very interesting tale. Parents are bank robbers? Twin sister skips out on you? Murder!? Sounds like writing gold! Unfortunately, Canada does not live up to it’s fantastic plot. It was slow and painful to read. The time that should have been spent developing the plot was wasted on developing setting. All around the characters that should have been interesting fell flat. The book was much longer than it needed to be, with pages of filler that didn’t move the plot along at all. Dell was less realistic than I wanted; his methods of dealing with all the events happening around him didn’t seem healthy at all. At 15, his entire life came crashing down (twice) and all of his previously held ideals were shattered (a lot) yet he remained upright. The book was just plain boring. The only good part about the book was the ending (i.e., last 20 or so pages).
I should mention that I borrowed this book from my library so I had no monetary losses to consider when reading it. In the end I rated Canada 2/5 stars. Don’t bother.
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