Shutter Island

Normally I don't curse much in my reviews, and I'm aware that there are LibraryThing members with tender young eyes, so if you are under the age of eighteen I'll give you a moment to click out of this review seeing how it will very soon contain profanity.

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Ready?

Yes?

Holy shit, y'all! I'm sputtering for more words that don't begin with s or f or mf because I am so pissed at Dennis Lehane for messing with my head in such an awesome way. I am thoroughly disgusted and green-eyed with ineffable envy that I can't even come close to the sick, twisted mind that created this book. Mr. Lehane completely manipulated my emotions and I'm undecided on whether I want to stalk the man until he puts a restraining order out on me or should I quietly show more seethe in my own incompetent stew of jealousy.

I normally don't give authors the proper props namely because I haven't the energy, and besides, they have plenty of people to tell them just how gorgeous they really are. I can only choke on a huge biscuit of admiration and hope that one day I'll have the vocabulary and the fortitude to come up with something other than, "holy shit" when it comes to describing this novel.

Upon finishing this book I turned to my boyfriend who was buried in his Daniel Silva paperback and I beat him about the forehead with Shutter Island screeching, "YOU WILL READ THIS NEXT! YOU WILL! YOU WILL!" and now he sits on the couch quietly reading it. Good boy. Good boy.

I'll settle down eventually. In the meantime, please read this book. Declaring it a psychological thriller is putting it mildly. I almost feel violated...in a good way, of course. show less

In Shutter Island, Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall, and his new partner Chuck Aule are headed to Shutter Island to investigate an escape. Shutter Island houses Ashecliffe Hospital, an asylum for the mentally insane who have committed violent crimes, and a female patient/inmate has escaped and is running loose on the island. But Teddy Daniels has an alternate reason for taking the assignment. He has learned through a twist of fate, that the man who set fire to his apartment complex, killing Teddy's wife, is housed in this very same institution. Teddy has managed to convince a senator that unethical research on humans is taking place here, so Teddy is given the recovery assignment so he can come in and covertly find evidence of this show more practice. Teddy is determined to find his wife's killer and exact his own justice - ethical or otherwise.

Dennis Lehane NEVER ceases to amaze me with the gift he has. He evokes so much emotion from his readers...simply by the way he strings his words together to make sentences and paragraphs. For example, right off the bat in the prologue the reader is painted this incredible picture:

"If time for me really is a series of bookmarks, then I feel as if someone has shaken the book and those yellowed slips of paper, torn matchbook covers and flattened coffee stirrers have fallen to the floor, and the dog-eared flaps have been pressed smooth."

Later in the novel, Rachel says, "...the dreams often stringing together and piggybacking off one another until they come to resemble a novel written by Picasso."

A novel written by Picasso? Who can't imagine that? And every person's image is going to be different, but they are all going to be "abstract."

Both of these quotes epitomize the utter chaos of the insane mind. And in a way, the whole book epitomizes the insane mind. But when you come to the conclusion, it isn't chaos at all; it's a well-formed, intricately layered plot. Every element works significantly and essentially with every other element.

The other looming theme in this book is violence. Is violence truly bad? Or is it an element of us all as the Warden impresses upon Teddy?

"God's gift...His violence...God loves violence...Why else would there be so much of it? It's in us. It comes out of us. It is what we do more naturally than we breathe. We wage war. We burn sacrifices. We pillage and tear at the flesh of our brothers. We fill great fields with our stinking dead. And why? To show Him that we've learned from His example...God gives us earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes. He gives us
mountains that spew fire onto our heads. Oceans that swallow ships. He gives us nature, and nature is a smiling killer. He gives us disease so that in our death we believe He gave us orifices only so that we could feel our life bleed out of them. He gave us lust and fury and greed and our filthy hearts. So that we could wage violence in His honor. There is no moral order as pure as this storm we've just seen. There is no moral order at all. There is only this - can my violence conquer yours?"

A savage hurricane is the backdrop for the four days of this novel, providing the evidence of Nature's violence. And Teddy comes to the island as a peace-keeper, a law enforcer. But he has a hidden agenda to avenge his wife. Is the warden really that far off base? And in a time when we are in a perpetual state of war ourselves, how can we deny his belief? Aren't we as a people illustrating just that?

If having a phenomenal plot wasn't enough, the character development is outstanding. The range of emotion I felt for Dr. Crawley and Chuck was a range I've rarely experienced with reading. And one I've NEVER experienced with stage or screen performances. Teddy will in all likelihood have to be added to my list of favorite characters. The depth of Teddy's character comes out in his own internal conflict, in his reaction to external conflict and it even comes out through other characters. I cannot detail much more than that without giving spoilers aways, so I'll leave characterization at that.

Despite my raves about the plot and characters, there was one element that was even better...the perspective. Lehane gave this book the perfect voice. It wouldn't have been as suspenseful any other way.

In Shutter Island, I felt big bear arms wrap around me and pull me in; I could not put this book down. Every time I thought I started to grasp what was going on, a new twist evolved. And it wasn't a twist that made you think, "oh pahleeeaze! can he go any more overboard?" It was a twist that made you think, "Holy Cow! I didn't even see that coming, but it was there!" His twists are so convincing and so amazingly weaved into the fabric of the plot, that you start to be on guard. When the conclusion actually started to play out, I was still waiting for another twist. Isn't that what suspense is supposed to be about?

This novel is nothing short of fabulous! A movie version is in the works for 2009. If you haven't already, get out and read this book BEFORE Hollywood butchers it. No movie would be capable of doing Lehane's work justice on this book. It will most definitely make my top 10 for 2008. show less

Pensaba que el mejor Thriller psicológico que había leído era el de Terapia de Sebastian Fitzek, pero eso era porque no había leído antes Shutter Island de Dennis Lehane.

Que pedazo de historia, que pedazo de libro y que pedazo de escritor, es que todavía estoy sin palabras, ni siquiera sé cómo hacer esta reseña, imposible decir de que va este libro porque cualquier cosa que escriba sería hacer un spoiler.

Tengo que hacer además un grande “Mea culpa” ya que había cometido el enorme error de no haber leído antes a Dennis Lehane, si este libro es una pauta para otros, creo que me espera una fiesta literaria en el futuro, creo que he leído muy pocos escritores que me hayan llevado a través de sus líneas a un punto de no show more retorno.

Sin duda Lehane no solo escribe bien, tiene una prosa magnifica, claro, pero es que además me ha llevado a una locura tal, me ha trasmitido todo lo que leía, este libro realmente me ha metido en la verdadera enfermedad mental que se respira en Shutter Island y a pesar de que había tantas cosas ahí, no pude, ni por error adivinar el final.

De verdad me faltan palabras para poder expresar lo mucho que me ha gustado e impactado este libro, el final es una verdadera genialidad, no solo es sorprendente, además es tan controlado, llevado a cabo con bisturí, impactante, cuando he leído ese final podía perfectamente imaginarme que el autor se imaginó primero ese final y a base de eso desarrollo toda su historia.

Por supuesto no había visto la película, no pude evitarlo, tuve que verla una vez que termine el libro, aunque el final está algo cambiado, nada importante realmente y por supuesto hay cosas algo diferentes, hay que decir que la película está bastante bien hecha y refleja mucho el libro, pero la cuestión aquí es que a la película le falta alma, imposible que transmita los pensamientos y sentimientos que refleja el libro.

Un thriller psicológico sin parangón, de lo mejor que he leído en mi vida en este género y obviamente me tengo que aplicar y leer todo lo que encuentre de este autor ¡Que bien escribe Lehane! show less

The thin veil of sanity sometimes wears thin, unraveling in patches. The breach allows a clear, unfiltered line of sight from both sides. In [Shutter Island], US Marshal Teddy Daniels is having a difficult time deciphering which side of the veil he is looking from.

Daniels and his new and colorful partner, Chuck Aule, arrive on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of an inmate from the Ashcliff Hospital for the Criminally Insane. They are trapped there when a hurricane assaults the rocky island. Every day on the island brings more paranoia and doubt to Daniels' mind. Are the doctors and staff conducting inhuman experiments on the patients? Are they drugging him in an effort to scuttle his investigation? Is there a larger show more conspiracy targeting Daniels? In the end, the answers to these questions are bundled up with the question of whether or not Daniels is, or ever was, sane.

LeHane is clearly the standard bearer for the hard boiled style in the 21st century. No one currently writing can carry off the sarcastic banter and, at the same time, delve so deeply into the human mind and heart with his characters. Most who attempt such a feat are only ever able to get half of that formula right. Dashiell hammet would be proud.

Much of the criticism I've seen of this particular novel centers onLeHane's ending. To be sure, the climax and resolution of the story will leave you scratching your head. But I, for one, was pleased that LeHane could so effectively pull off such ambiguity in the conclusion. It leaves the reader in exactly the same conundrum that Daniels finds himself.

Bottom Line: 21st century hard boiled. A pleasure to read, and an ending that will send you back to the last few pages for a second read. show less

this is a fast paced thriller that feels pretty predictable (the storm that puts all the power out, the migraines, even the fear of water were all pretty convenient) until it picks up toward the end. i was thinking that it was probably my least favorite lehane until we got almost 300 pages in. but since i love it when an author screws with the reader like this, making the narrator unreliable without warning, i reallyenjoyed the last 70 pages of this. is he crazy or isn't he? are they fucking with him or aren't they? who can we trust? i am kind of pissed at myself for not seeing the obvious, although of course the point of the book is that the reader wouldn't. still, to not suspect that he was a patient there... i'm ashamed of myself, show more but it made the book so much more enjoyable to have that revealed. and his ending was perfect, as it wasn't likely he would actually recover his sanity, regardless of freud's theory that facing your fears can do that. i do also like that there is a point here, about psychopharmacology and the way the mentally ill are treated. (i'd thought for a bit that this was going to be the first book of his that i'd read without a social issue, and am glad to be wrong.) super strong ending pulls this book up for me, and made it super fun by the end.

"'Right now, the balance of power is in the hands of the surgeons, but that's going to change fast. The pharmacists will take over, and it won't be any less barbaric. It'll just seem so. The same zombiefication and warehousing that are going on now will continue under a more publicly palatable veneer.'" show less

Dennis Lehane never fails to craft compelling pageturners, and I raced through this one in 24 hours. Shutter Island is a nightmarish, psychological, mind-bending mystery, that compels the reader to travel along with two Marshals to an isolated island where a prison for violent mental patients is located. Their assignment is to track down an escaped murderess, all the while a hurricane is pounding down on them, inmates are lying to them, and shrinks are throwing up roadblocks. The ending is very ambiguous, so even after reading the last chapter several times, I wasn't certain that I understood what had ultimately happened. After doing some googling, I "get it," but I can't say that I'm completely satisfied with the culmination of this tale.

Shutter Island is off the coast of Massachusetts, housing an asylum for the criminally insane. As a nasty summer storm brews up, U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule cross over to the island to search for an escaped inmate. But Teddy knows that things are not as they seem on Shutter Island.

Ho-lee crap. It's been a while since a book has messed with my head this much. Just as I thought I knew what was going on, a new revelation would come along and knock all my theories out from under me. It all ultimately made sense and brought me deeper into this world, and I have to say that I loved it. I didn't really know what was going on until the very last few pages, and I find that even after I finished it, I'm sitting here thinking, show more "Well, maybe it still really wasn't what it seemed..." You'll see. I bet almost everyone is surprised by this ending.

The twists and turns were the big draw of this book for me, but I loved Lehane's style. This is the first book I've read of his, but it won't be my last. Shutter Island is set in 1954, and I love the way these marshals speak to each other and so quickly establish common ground through The War. Their speech, their mannerisms, it all fit together to make them feel like real people.

If I say anymore, I'll give something away, so I'll leave it at that. I highly, highly recommend this if you like your thrillers gritty and unpredictable. show less