Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another review! For this review, we get into a dark one. Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry I feel like can only be described as spine-chilling, in which it dives into the topic of how far would a mother go to try to save her son?
*** Some warnings for future readers***
- Includes sexual assault of children
- Includes self-harm
Main Characters:
- Noah Coates: Shocks those around him when he is convicted of a terrible crime
- Adrianne Coates: Noah’s mother, is desperate to rehabilitate her son after he does something no one expects
- Lucas Coates: Noah’s father, is not as supportive as his wife towards his son, and struggles to separate Noah from the crime
My Review
I feel like all I can say to describe this book is oof. This one really gets you thinking. Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry tells the spine-chilling story of the Coates family being thrown upside down when it is exposed that their teenage son has been molesting young girls. While the plot does follow the Coates as they navigate this revelation, the main theme is thought-provoking topics that are there to make the reader question what they would do.
I struggled to decide what to rate the book but I decided to go with a 8/10. While I thought the book was interesting in terms of the taboo topics it touched on, I really didn’t end up liking many of the characters, and there were a few times when I was getting a bit frustrated with everyone’s actions. I do feel like that’s kind of the point of the book though, I am sure based on everyone who has read this book everyone has different opinions on the different characters. It’s a book that’s hard to put down but I will say I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to conclude and I wasn’t totally expecting the ending.
As I had said before this is a book that’s terrible in terms of the topic, but great in terms of how the story is told, and how we get a look at what role each character plays. When teenage Noah is arrested for the sexual assault of a child and charged for the crime those in his town are shocked. Noah has everything going for him, he’s good at sports (specifically swimming), good in school, and is popular, so no one saw it coming that he would be charged for inappropriately touching two 6-year-old girls. Noah spends time away for his crimes where he is treated like a pedophile by those around him. When he gets out things aren’t much better for him and going back to normal life after what he’s done isn’t really possible. His mother Arianne however is desperate to have her son back and have him get back to the life he is supposed to be living. His father Lucas struggles to forgive his son and isn’t comfortable being around him or having his sister around him.
This book makes your stomach swirl. It’s hard to think about someone so young doing things like that. Noah (I believe) is 16 and it’s hard to think about a 16-year-old being attracted to 6-year-olds. It pains the question if pedophiles are always attracted to children even when they are in their teen years, and if it’s something they grow with like any same-age (or healthy) sexuality journey. It also brings the question of if it’s something people are born with, can it ever really be changed? I mean throughout history it’s been proven that you can’t force gay people to be straight, so why do we think we can get pedophiles to like adults?
I definitely struggled with the character of Noah. I think there were parts of him that were admirable. We find out very early in the book that it was Noah who actually owned up to what he did and not the children he did it to. To a degree, I found that to be brave for him to admit this to someone knowing the consequences. Part of me really does believe that his claim that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else is true. Other parts weren’t. I mean he obviously is a dangerous person. He admits to doing something that he clearly knew was wrong and being unable to control himself. There is nothing to say that he wouldn’t do it again, but he does outwardly admit these parts about himself making it hard for him to do it. I did struggle to understand one thing about him though, and that’s if he wanted to change. I don’t think that the help he gets in his book is adequate and I do wish he got more help (mentally), and that’s the fault of his parents, but he also didn’t exactly ask for it. I just think more could have been done to make him someone who could maybe live in society, but at the same time, I can’t deny that someone who starts doing things like that at that age could be really dangerous.
I really struggled with Noah’s mom Arianne. Look to a degree I get it, she loves her son no matter what and that’s her deal. The question that she forces every reader to ask themselves is what would you do in her shoes? I mean look if it was my kid I don’t think I could say that I wouldn’t love them anymore but it would definitely be a lot less than I had previously. I would still support them to a degree in terms of being there as they get help if they want to get better, but I wouldn’t support what they did. Arianne if things had gone differently would have wanted to hide everything and have Noah be able to have gotten to continue his life normally. Thank god that wasn’t the case but her attitude often left a bad taste in my mouth. I get that she still wants to see her son as a little boy, but he’s making manly decisions, and those that he knows are wrong. Not only that but his choices don’t only affect them, they affect the children he touched and their families. She often pays very little attention to how the victims are affected and only how Noah is. Now don’t get me wrong some things that unfold in the book towards Noah for what he did I don’t agree with, but shit these are also things we all grow up knowing happens to people who do these things. Does that make it right? No, but you can’t say you don’t know what would happen. I also dislike the big factor that she ignores and her husband pays attention to. Noah assaulted girls who were the same age as his sister. Now, I will say that based on how his sister acted in this book I am about 75% certain he didn’t touch her. It’s hard to not question though if he maybe didn’t use these other girls as a surrogate for her. At some point the other girls may not have been good enough, that may be why he ultimately owned up to it because he didn’t want to hurt her. Arianne won’t even acknowledge the possibility of what their daughter means in it all and it’s strange. She often seemed very much in denial so that may have had a lot to do with it.
Noah’s Dad was an equally tough character as well. I understood him more, but there were parts that I really didn’t. He really turned on Noah during all of this, and there were parts where I felt he was overly harsh. I got his fear of his son now that these things about him had been exposed, but there were other parts where his fear was over the top. Realistically this was his son, and his son was expressing some desire to get better, and his support could have made a difference. I really don’t blame him for getting super protective of his daughter though because I would honestly do the same thing. I had the same red flags that he did and they deserved to be focused on.
I think overall this is a tough book, and one with some twists that you don’t expect. I found that the plot made it hard to tear away from and you just want to know what’s going to happen next, and how this family is going to deal with this next hurdle. Don’t go into this book expecting there to really be any happy endings, because in a book like this, there can’t be. I appreciated Lucinda’s vivid storytelling in which I felt myself stuck in this terribly uncomfortable world with this family that is falling apart at the seams.
***Spoilers ahead***
So, there are two twists in the book. The first one that I didn’t see coming, is that the book ultimately ends with Arianne helping Noah commit suicide. Noah, admitting to her that he only has attraction to children, and feels like he can’t ever change. The only way to protect children is for him to head out. Arianne grapples with his request for her to help him for a long time, but after seeing how society treats him, untimely does. The ending definitely made me sad. I really struggle to know whether Noah could have really been rehabbed or not. The really interesting factor about him was how aware he was of his attractions, and how much he knew they were a problem. I feel like this isn’t always a common thing with pedophiles. Most don’t know the damage their desires can cause and to not hurt people turn themselves in. His awareness of the dangers of his desires made me feel like he maybe could have changed. It’s hard to know though. I think ultimately though he didn’t need to die. As weird as this sounds I have heard that some released pedophiles receive the Depo shot (women’s birth control) and it stops them from being unable to get erection and messes up their sex drives. That doesn’t stop them from being able to assault someone in other ways but I feel like Noah just needed a crutch to help show him that he could stop himself from doing the things he didn’t want to do, and knew were wrong. This was a hard one for sure a part of me was just glad the guy was a peace and wasn’t torturing himself in his mind anymore, but I feel like something else could have been done.
The other thing that ends up being exposed at the end of the book is that Noah’s dad treated him the way he did because he feared what he saw in himself in his son. His dad admits to also having a thing for children and things were a bit strange to me. He says that he never touched Noah, but I wasn’t sure. Was this a way to explain why Noah was the way he was? I didn’t want to google it because I don’t want to be flagged by the police but I am not exactly certain that pedophilia is genetic. Like I can’t be certain because I don’t want that in my history but that doesn’t make sense to me. The only thing that does is that Noah’s choices are a trauma response due to being assaulted by his dad. That was the only reason I felt like we were being told this, because why else? I mean it sucks that he is also this way, but I wondered if this was also supposed to be a way of showing that you can stop doing these things if you try. Lucas insinuates that he was able to stop (whether or not that’s true) so it made me wonder if maybe Noah could have controlled this as well. It’s hard to say but it was a weird last drop for the book. Just had to end it off making you wonder more I guess.
I hope you enjoyed this review! Have you checked out Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry before? What did you think? Feel free to check out my social media @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I drop a new review!
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