We bury our sins here. We wash them clean.

Book 2: Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
My rating: ****

This book was actually my plan B. When I was at the library I was looking for the book "Shutter Island" also by Dennis Lehane, but as luck would have it - the library didn't have that one. I wanted to read Mystic River anyway, so it worked out OK.

I actually saw the movie of this book a few years back. I picked it up at a discount store in Springfield, OH for $2 or something like that. I don't often pass up movies that are that cheap, and this one had a pretty good cast (Tim Robbins - whom I love, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney). I really enjoyed the movie and was floored by the sheer...grittiness of it - the picture of the realities of life. It wasn't a feel-good, happy ending type of movie. And neither is the book. In fact, the book was really depressing at times - probably because of the hopelessness so many of the characters experienced.

The story centers around 3 boys/men - Jimmy, Sean, and Dave. They spent a lot of their childhood together until Dave was abducted and held captive by child molesters. When Dave escaped 4 days later he was a completely different kid. 25 years later, after growing apart and going their separate ways, the 3 men are reunited in the midst of a tragedy. This tragedy brings many emotions, character flaws, and secrets to the surface of each of these men's lives, which they in turn suppress and hide so the true nature of who they are isn't exposed, which is the symbolism of the Mystic River that runs outside of their town.

Jimmy made a comment at one point in the book that life is a series of threads, and when you pull one all the others are effected. In his own life he said that if he would've gotten into that car with Dave then he wouldn't have been so ballsy as a teenager, and he wouldn't have asked out a beautiful girl that was way out of his league, and they wouldn't have fallen in love, and they wouldn't have gotten married, and she wouldn't have given birth to their daughter Katie, and she (Katie) wouldn't have gotten murdered. He was reflecting on the fact that one life being different changes the entire outcome of everything. I couldn't help but think about this in regard to my own life. A lot of times people talk about how they would do things in their past differently if they could. At this point, I don't know that I would change anything about my past. Sure, I've made some bad decisions and had some serious struggles that were hard and I have still yet to entirely overcome, but if it weren't for those things I wouldn't have learned the things that I have - and that's something I wouldn't want to change. Like - I think sometimes, "What if I wouldn't have gone to Word of Life?" I think my life would be...so different than it is now. I wouldn't have met some of my best friends who have challenged me in some very deep ways. I wouldn't have ended up at Cedarville and gone through a series of things that God used to guide me into a deeper and more fresh understanding of what the Gospel's all about. Sure, my life would be different, but I'm not sure that I want it to be.

At any rate, I'm not sure I can say that I enjoyed this book in the same sense that I enjoy a book that has a bit more...happiness in it. But I liked it. And the movie did a great job of keeping with the integrity of the book. I would recommend it only if you can handle language and an ending that isn't wrapped up neatly.