What readers think of The Law of Similars, plus links to write your own review.

Five stars again for Chris Bohjalian. I have read nearly all his books, and most are five-star, some four. This one, THE LAW OF SIMILARS, is a book he wrote nearly 20 years ago.

Leland is a deputy state prosecutor. He is also a widower with a four-year-old daughter. For what appears to me to be psychological reasons, he develops a sore throat that just won’t go away. This leads him to Carissa, a homeopath.

In short order (ridiculously short order, in my opinion), Leland falls in love with Carissa (or maybe mistakes sexual attraction for love). He is so overwhelmed by this love (attraction) that he ignores all ethics of his profession when she is investigated for the murder of one of her other patients.

For a book to merit five stars, it must be unputdownable, and this one is. Even though I say that Leland doesn’t think with his brain, it’s still a darn good read.

You wish the characters in this novel lived next door. They are open and easy to know.
You'll experience their highs and lows -- and wonder if you'd have made the same decisions.
The love story gets a bit too erotic for a bit, but over all the book is a wonderfully unique story.

Linda
I was never convinced that this story was being told from the point of view of a fourteen year old girl. Her vocabulary was so preppy that it made it even more ridiculous to try and believe she was a child of hippy parents. How many fourteen year olds do things "on a lark" or see themselves as "aspiring tarts". The most difficult part to swallow was that this ex-hippy Sybil Danforth, a woman who is devoted to a natural, alternative, New Age sort of life, stocks her pantry with diet soft drinks, packaged cereals and eats hamburger! Chris Bohjalian really didn't do his homework here. He also neglected to really develop the characters. They never came to life for me. This could have been a great book. The moral dilemma had the potential to be riveting. If only it had been done by a better writer.