THE DESCENDANTS - KAUI HART HEMMINGS

It's been too long since I last finished a book from my list and the main reason for that is because I just didn't enjoy the book. I chose to read The Descendants because I had been desperate to watch the film - that never happened - and so I instead compensated for this by reading the book. 

Much to my disappointment, the book was so so slow and I never really got a sense of who the characters were. The story is told through the voice of Matt King, a man whose wife is left in a coma after a boating accident. Matt is left in charge of their two daughters, and pretty much the while first half of the book is just various hospital scenes with Matt and his daughters. I know that these scenes are necessary for the story but they never really explored each character as an individual so I never got a strong image of who they are. 

Matt discovers that his wife has been having an affair and then decide to uproot himself and his daughters to the road to find the man so he can say his last goodbyes. It is a very compelling story with some serious emotional twists but the author has tried to put a real comedy slant on it in the forms of the conversation between father and daughters. I think that the dramatic comedy mix didn't really work all that well and the tone of the book was completely altered. 

I wish I had watched the movie before I had read the book - this will anger some people I know! Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this book as it was a very slow starter and it took me twice as long to read because of that.