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The Returned by Jason Mott
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The Returned (edition 2013)

by Jason Mott

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91611822,984 (3.35)44
When their son Jacob, who died tragically at his 8th birthday party in 1966, arrives on their doorstep, still 8 years old, Harold and Lucille Hargrave must navigate a strange new reality as chaos erupts around the world as people's loved ones are returned from beyond.
Member:jennks
Title:The Returned
Authors:Jason Mott
Info:Harlequin MIRA (2013), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 352 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***
Tags:None

Work Information

The Returned by Jason Mott

  1. 50
    Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist (michellebarton)
    michellebarton: Both stories about loved ones returned from the dead and the complicated relationships involved.
  2. 00
    Familiar by J. Robert Lennon (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: Like The Returned, Familiar is an emotionally complex, suspenseful narrative focused on a woman whose dead son inexplicably returns to life years later.
  3. 00
    Second Chances (Fiction Without Frontiers) by P. D. Cacek (AngelaJMaher)
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English (111)  Dutch (4)  Spanish (1)  All languages (116)
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Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time ... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.

Provided in ebook format from http://www.netgalley.com

This is a tough book to review. An elderly couple are confronted with their 8 year old son, who died decades ago, standing on the porch with a man from the FBI. The Hargrave couple are not the only ones to be confronted with their loved ones returning apparently from the grave - whole families are coming back to the place they feel they should be, all across the world. More and more come back, some are accepted, some not. How the different global governments deal with it differs, and the US government starts rounding them up into internment camps - one based in the town where the Hargraves live, slowly pushing the people out of their homes as more and more of the no longer dead keep being bused in.

Finally, Lucille decides to make a stance, which brings things to a head, at least in their part of the country. Much of the book, little seems to happen. More Returned arrive, then slowly start disappearing (with or without "help" of the army). The True Living object, riot, picket the camps. The Returned who are not in a camp struggle with being back in the world, and are hounded and harassed. It's never explained why the Returned come back - presumably to compound that the Governments never find out why and can only say the Returned are being "processed" - without telling what "processing" means either.

In the end it's about "goodbyes", and attempting to get explanations for why something happens, without always getting the answer you think you're looking for.

Some reviewers have given this a 5 star review, and to be honest I'm struggling to justify one that high - this is somewhere in the 3 to 4 star range, bumped down to a 3 due to the ebook formatting issues I had - see below.

(note: the ebook format I got - which ended up being read on an ipad mini with Kindle software, was not the best formatting, with few page and section breaks. This meant that the story line could change focus from one character to another with no break, which lead to a small confusion for the reader). ( )
  nordie | Oct 14, 2023 |
What could present a better storyline than this, people who have actually experienced whether or not there is something beyond death? From a first glance at the title the reader may be mistaken in thinking that this is the usual undead meal served on a different plate, but they would be wrong. This Author took a different angle to this now well-worn and tired out old scenario, and then failed to bring it to its full glory.

What could have been a novel full of intriguing characters and an even better storyline that would have kept me turning pages was instead, a novel full of characters I really couldn’t care less about and a plot that left me with more questions than answers. The main protagonists in this novel are almost mechanical like in their personalities and nature, but rather than making the reader wonder what about their current situation makes them this way they are left feeling they are reading about flat one dimensional non people. Even the main “returned” character is boring, and that was the biggest disappointment for me in this novel; instead of filling him with insight and revelations on what lay beyond, the Author took the complete opposite tack and had this character say nothing at all about death and the afterlife.

The plot line moves along at a slow and plodding pace and, even though I don’t expect everything I read to be fast-paced and full of action, in a book with this topic as the plot I was expecting places that would make me think and wonder; and not about whether I would make it to the end or not. The redeeming factor for me that kept me going to the end was the interspersion of stories told of the other “returned”. These snippets gave more of an insight into the effect of their coming back, not only on their families but on society as a whole. They were moving and emotional, and from an interest point of view knocked the socks off the main plot line. In my opinion, after reading this and seeing how well the Author tackled the shorts, I feel they would fare better by writing short stories than attempting to breathe life into a series that hasn’t even made it out of the gates for this reader. I doubt I will be reading any of the subsequent books.

I will recommend this book to a certain reader who may enjoy this, but I’m not entirely sure who that reader would be as I felt I definitely was not in the targeted audience.

Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/03/11/review-the-returned-the-returned-1-jason-m...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
( )
  Melline | Aug 13, 2022 |
Thoughtful book about what if, unintended consequences, what would you do, and do on . . . it was interesting to read why the author wrote it----hmmmm!!!! ( )
  WiseOwlFactory | Feb 20, 2022 |
rabck from wildflower37; what if your loved one comes back from the dead? And why do only some come back? Intriguing concept. 8 yo Jacob drowned 50 years ago, he reappeared in China and finally got back to his parents, who are in their 70s. They are given a choice - accept him back or have the government continue to keep him. They do take him back, but then the world gets overrun with the Returned. So the town building are conscripted by the government & the Returned are relocated there due to fear from the townfolk who don't have loved ones return or are just plain scared. Interwoven with 1-2 pages of individual stories - such as the Japanese soldier from WWII trying to surrender in Kentucky, or the family that was murdered in Arcadia, but no one still knows who did it. A lot to ponder - if this really happened, what's the right thing to do? ( )
  nancynova | Oct 9, 2021 |
Throughout this entire book, I kept questioning what I thought of it.

It has an intriguing idea at its core, and some interesting characters and situations. It's a very serious book, but it also has fun with itself at times, jokes about waking the dead, whether Elvis has come back yet, that sort of thing.

My rating is more a 3.5 than 4, and that's because I just kept feeling there were too many avenues not taken, too many plot points not examined. As I said, it's a great concept, but I felt that much of the time that the author was either holding back or simply not pushing hard enough.

I understand, from the author's note at the end, that this was a story born out of personal loss, and I question whether it was the fact that perhaps he was too close to the central idea that he couldn't--or wouldn't--allow himself to see around the corners a bit more.

What I mean by this is, I was aching for a deeper look into individual character thoughts on exactly what the Returned meant to each of them. How did they feel about those that had returned? How jealous or relieved were they that their own loved ones did not come back?

As well, how did this happen? Why? Much of what I read, I continually asked, the author chose to show us this part specifically...to what purpose?

All this is not to say this is a bad book. It's definitely not. It's worth the read, especially the last few pages. They do offer up a mostly satisfying payoff.

I just was hoping for more depth, for more serious issues of death, life, relationships, and ultimately the meaning of life to be examined more through the characters' eyes. ( )
  TobinElliott | Sep 3, 2021 |
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For my mother and father.
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Harold opened the door that day to find a dark-skinned man in a well-cut suit smiling at him.
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When their son Jacob, who died tragically at his 8th birthday party in 1966, arrives on their doorstep, still 8 years old, Harold and Lucille Hargrave must navigate a strange new reality as chaos erupts around the world as people's loved ones are returned from beyond.

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