Recovering Charles

If ever a book was to get a "meh" rating, this would be it. Not bad but not necessarily good, Recovering Charles tells the story of a son who finds a way to forgive his alcoholic father by searching for him throughout the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation. Like most "meh" books, it has some highs and lows.

The highs would be the description of New Orleans. For the first time, I felt a deep sense of horror and urgency about saving that great city. Blame it on the over-saturation we get from the media, the almost non-stop global disasters whose images stream through our T.V.s and computers through-out the years, but I admit that I was not personally affected with New Orleans flooding. Reading this book didn't give me a complete turn around, but I do think it allowed me to feel how much was lost for the individual citizens there - albeit the people I was mourning for were completely fictional.

The lows included an unnecessary love story, a completely unnecessary love triangle, and a weak protagonist.

If you're interested in a story involving New Orleans and its recovery, you might enjoy this book. For anyone else...all I can say is...."meh."