Hold Tight
by Harlan Coben
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Book Summary Information
Author: Harlan CobenEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2008-04-15
ISBN: 0525950608
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Product features:
- #1 Bestselling author of The Woods
- How well do you really know your child?
- A fictional book focused around teen suicide.
Book Reviews of Hold Tight
Book Review: "Are you saying that a person is entitled to their secrets?"
Summary: 4 Stars
Harlan Coben's "Hold Tight" starts out with a bang. A woman named Marianne is sitting in a bar nursing her drink and "marveling at her endless capacity to destroy any good in her pathetic life." Before you can say psychotic serial killer, she is tossed into a van and brutally tortured. Who is Marianne and why has this crazed man targeted her?
Coben segues to his main characters, Dr. Mike and Tia Baye, who live in a beautiful split-level home in Livingston, New Jersey. The Bayes have reluctantly decided to spy on their sullen and secretive sixteen-year-old, Adam, using a program called E-SpyRight. Thanks to this nifty software, they will be able to monitor his every keystroke. They will know whom he emails, who emails him, the contents of his messages (including IMs) and which Web sites he visits. Why are they invading their son's privacy? After his friend, Spencer, committed suicide, Adam's personality changed. His grades slipped, he barely speaks, he spends hours in his room playing on his computer, and often disappears without telling anyone his whereabouts. He visited a therapist once and refuses to go back for further treatment. When Mike expresses his qualms about keeping tabs on Adam, Tia counters by saying, "He might be drinking or doing drugs or who knows what. Stop burying your head in the sand." She adds that protecting Adam is more important than letting him have his space.
Tia, who works for a high-powered and aggressive lawyer named Hester Crimstein, is having difficulty balancing the demands of her job and her personal concerns. Crimstein lets Tia know in no uncertain terms that if she chooses to puts her family before her career, she will be summarily fired. Another subplot deals with the Baye's downcast neighbor, the gorgeous Susan Loriman, whose ten-year-old son, Lucas, desperately needs a kidney transplant. (Mike Baye is a transplant surgeon.) However, she is harboring a troubling secret that could determine whether her son lives or dies. The Baye's eleven-year-old daughter, Jill, is a precocious young lady whose BFF (best friend forever) is Yasmin, the child of a broken home. The two girls share all of their inner thoughts with one another, and Yasmin suffers greatly when one of her teachers derides her physical appearance in front of the entire class. The child bitterly resents her teacher for his lapse. What should have been a minor but regrettable incident will turn out to have devastating consequences.
A series of clues send Mike on a perilous expedition to find out where his son is and bring him home. When he gets close to the truth, the doctor is severely beaten and nearly killed. Exactly what is Adam up to? Mike's good friend, the blunt Mo, weighs in with his opinions, as he always does. Meanwhile, what started as a routine case of nervous parents looking out for their son's welfare morphs into a crisis that may cost people their lives and freedom.
Coben sets up his plot masterfully. He provides just enough information to hook the reader but withholds vital pieces of the puzzle until the very end. I had very little idea where the book was headed, and I turned pages quickly, anxious to learn what the outcome would be. Eventually, all of the pieces come together in a climactic and somewhat violent final confrontation.
The author raises timely questions that concern today's parents: Have we given our kids too many material possessions and too much freedom? How deeply should we be involved in their everyday lives? If we invest too much time and energy in them, will we smother their development and prevent them from engaging in normal rebellion? Should we use the incredible technology that is available today to spy on our loved ones? There are no easy answers to these questions and Coben makes no attempt to provide any. As the novel comes to a close, some of the twists and turns that he throws in strain credulity. Still, "Hold Tight" is a crisply written, intense, and riveting contemporary drama about the dilemma of well-meaning parents who are desperate to control their children's destiny in a perilous and unpredictable world.
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