LitPick Review
The Deepest Blue
Mike Wilson’s life is going great—he makes good grades, has a pretty girlfriend, and even works at a well-paying job with his dad on their charter boat business. Everything’s perfect—perfect, that is, until Mike’s dad is killed in a horrific accident by a drunk driver, leaving him an orphan. Devastated, broken, and not knowing where to turn, Mike’s life is in a constant limbo. Soon afterward, his mother, who disowned him and his father when he was just a child, resurfaces and demands he come back into her life—whether she (and her well-paid lawyer) have to force him or not. Still smarting over her rejection, Mike is determined to fight his mother with everything he’s got—including his dad’s former fiancée, Maggie, shipmate-turned-lawyer Chuck Marshall, and Ms. Young, the federal attorney that supposed to get Mike his life back. Played out in a nasty courtroom battle with an emotional twist, The Deepest Blue by Kim Williams Justesen is just starting to heat up—and which side Mike will find himself on is still a mystery.
“But there’s an empty feeling in my gut—a cold, hard place like I swallowed a stone. He isn’t part of me anymore. I discover an emotion I have never felt before. It rises up and takes over me like a way: I want to be dead, too.”
Opinion:
Honestly, this book was disappointing. The character development was certainly not up to par. The few supporting characters were distressingly weak, and MIKE--Mike is the typical teenage stereotype. I mean, I know he lost his dad, but that gives the author no reason to totally demolish the character and his personality in a quick succession of fits of anger and moodiness. It seemed so rushed. Half the book seemed to be a quick sprint toward the subject that the author REALLY wanted to write about--a courtroom melodrama that everyone saw coming. And the ending—tied up in sloppy bows, tons of plot lines left unresolved, and a predictable “The End”. Sure, it was a solid book technically speaking--good vocab, descriptive writing, sound structure—but it just didn’t work that way I felt it should have. Potential abounds—but I felt that Justesen could have done better for herself and the characters she wrote about in this book.
“I watch the white car pull away from the mortuary, signal, and merge onto the main road….....Maggie softly cries. I am completely numb.”
I would recommend this book for ages ten and up, as it only has mild expletives and one sexual situation. Everything else stays in check pretty well.
Alone and afraid, will Mike to be able to fight for his right to stay where he believes he belongs—or will his mother finally get her way and rip him from everything he’s ever known? The Deepest Blue by Kim Williams Justeten is the only way to find out!
