About the book:
Set in a medium-security penitentiary in the mid-1990s, The Ledger is a faith-based story that pulls back the curtain on prison life, allowing the reader a safe peek behind the wall.
Although told from three alternating perspectives—officer, inmate, and sergeant—many of the same questions are asked: Can light be found in the deepest darkness? What about forgiveness, redemption, and grace? And if the code is clear, “loyalty above all things except honor,” when should an officer cross the blue line to police one of his own?
My review:
I need to begin my review by saying that I love this author and everything he has written. This particular book. the second in a series, is a departure from what I have read before. The book needs to have a trigger label on it. If you have a family member that is incarcerated or is employed by a correction facility, then be forewarned. The book as a whole is fictional but it can read and feel personal.
Having said that, the author's writing style immediately places you right in the heart of the story. His original book in this series made you feel good and you were left with Hope and fuzzy bunnies.
This book also left you with Hope but not feeling necessarily so great. However, the overall message here is redemption. Do some of us human beings deserve redemption from the atrocities we have caused once we have left this world? Does God forgive everything? The "ledger" shows it all, tells all, but does God still love us?
Again, I felt as if I had been plopped in as one of the characters, but I was viewing both sides: the seedier side of the inmates incarcerated and the side of those who worked there. Depending on what was happening behind the walls of the prison depended on how I was able to review.
The characters were well developed but also open and raw. There were times when I had to swallow hard and plow through the book or just had to put it down because the scenes were horrific and unfortunately, repetitive. This was not a reflection of the author and his writing but a nuance that described what happened before inmates arrived and after they arrived, many to start life sentences. But the book also described what could and likely did happen for those that worked there as well. Some succumbing to being no better than the ones that "lived" there. Others, upstanding.
As I pointed out earlier, what this book was really about was how do we serve God. In the beginning we are given choices alongside of what those choices can bring. We are given free will and what we do with it is up to us. We can use our free will for goodness and spread light into the world, or we can use it for darkness. God does not intervene until we are called "home" and the "ledger" accounted for.
Note: the only part of this book that seemed like it should have been maybe a novelette was the conclusion. Even though it was tied to a part of the book, it felt more like a tally of maybe things the author himself had witnessed as a correctional officer. He had noted early on that this was employment that he actually had done in his former life before becoming an author. The fact is, even though this book was fictional, I have no doubt that the author had seen some extremely cringy things and the ending was a culmination of those things but fabricated into a great story.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publicist. The views here are 100% my own and may differ from yours. 4 stars
~Michelle, Reading Authors Network
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