What do readers think of A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee? Write your own review.

The beginning of this book is like something out a fairy tale for middle-aged women. A husband, Ben, engages in strange and destructive behavior. The wife, Helen, finds unexpected talents which lead to lucrative employment. Unfortunately, in the second half of the book, I found Helen's behavior bizarrely unreasonable and out of character. I wasn't willing to buy into the parallels in the couple's choices that Dee seemed to be suggesting. I ended up feeling rather disappointed by the book.

I believe this book started out fairly well. But early on I lost interest in it. I found the plot meager at best, and the character's unbelievable and not very interesting. I like to give a book a chance, to let it develop (or in this case, get better) over time, but couldn't engage with this book to it's ending.

The title of this book gives the impression that it's a story of forgiveness and redemption, but what it mostly seems to be about is people behaving badly and not really learning anything from their mistakes. Populated by underdeveloped and largely unlikable characters, this stunted storyline leaves a lot to be desired. I kept waiting to feel invested in the characters and story and never really did.

I really wanted to like this book, however, even though it was barely 200 pages long, I plodded through it. The storyline was rambling and disjointed, the characters unbelievable, and the ending unsatisfying. It is hard to understand how the author could have been a Pulitzer Prize finalist. I have seen better writing by authors with fewer credentials than his. The author should ask the readers for a thousand pardons for subjecting us to such a poorly written, unfinished work.