Every once in a while, you read a novel that you just know will divide people and at the same time make you want to talk about it with everyone you know. For me, that book was SAVING NOAH. Lucinda Berry takes a difficult subject and further complicates matters with some unexpected plot twists. The result is a novel that I am still thinking about long after I turned the last page.

Berry wastes no time hitting readers over the head with the question that Adrianne and Lucas are forced to answer: What would you do if you found out your teenage son was a pedophile? Noah’s conviction was a gut punch to their family and the entire community, who could not bring themselves to ever forgive them. They quickly learn that a murderer has a better chance at forgiveness than a child molester. Even though the girls Noah abused while coaching them during a summer swim camp were not physically harmed, the fact remains that they were only six years old.

"Lucinda Berry takes a difficult subject and further complicates matters with some unexpected plot twists. The result is a novel that I am still thinking about long after I turned the last page."

Noah touched them but did not rape them. Adrianne is able to live with that and uses it to help her try to understand his behavior. Lucas, though, cannot bring himself to accept any of this. He pushes away Noah, and eventually Adrianne, both emotionally and physically. Even the family moving cannot stop the stigma they must live under. Word always travels, as Noah finds out in the form of brutal beatings to which he is subjected at whatever school he attends, even after serving his time and getting state-ordered therapy.

Noah decides that he wants to go to college. He and Adrianne move into an apartment by themselves, while Lucas and their daughter, Katie, remain in the new family home. The separation does not help Noah, who remains distant and sullen right up until the first time he attempts to kill himself by hanging. He is saved and is kept in the hospital for further psychological therapy. However, Adrianne found his suicide note and learns that nothing will stop him from trying to end his life again. He cannot live as a monster who knows he is incapable of controlling his own unnatural urges. 

Adrianne shares this information with Lucas and urges him to talk to Noah. This does not go well as he suggests that his son move far away from them and never return. Even though Noah was a teenager at the time of his conviction, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act dictates that he must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. With Noah insisting that death is the only option for him, he must convince his mother of this.

The last portion of the novel is extremely tense and impossible to look away from. An additional plot element will have heads spinning and provide even more for readers to consider as they absorb and ponder the details of this stunning story. 

SAVING NOAH could have been written only by someone like Lucinda Berry, a former psychologist and expert in childhood trauma. Her books are filled with her past experiences, bringing harsh truth to the fiction she creates.