Book Review: Shutter Island

Shutter Island

by Dennis Lehane

Mass Market Paperback, 369 pages

Published April 27th 2004 by HarperTorch (first published 2003) 

 

The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new -partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades--with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems - Goodreads

 

Rating

*Review may contain spoilers, oh no!*

    I saw the movie version of  this book a week or so after it came out. I ended  loving the concept even if I saw the twist coming from a mile awhile. I just really remember liking how all the characters interacted and how everything fell into place at the end. For me it is not about the ending, but the journey there, well unless the ending of something sucks. Anyway, when the credits ran it and said this was based on a book, I ran out and bought said book as soon as I could and sat down to read it. I have found in my years of watching movies based on books that for me it is better to see the movie first and read the book second. I do this because I have find  that if I read the book first I am nit picking the movie to death and not enjoying it for what it is. 

      I found that I devoured the book in less than a week and loved it just as much if not more than the movie. I loved how everything builds and builds and when you finally get the secret at the end you end up with more questions than answers. For me personally, that is perfect, though I know some people like all their questions answered at the end. For me , I like the mystery a bit more and guessing then a "perfect" ending. I think what really won me over with this book besides the excellent characters, story and writing, is being made to believe and trust in one thing at the beginning and having that totally turned on its head in the end.If you have saw the movie or read the book you know what I am talking about.  I think what makes this book sort of scary is that because you trust the narrator in what he tells you,, you are not sure where reality stands anymore at the end of it all. Also as someone who loves all things Psychology, the novel tests what our brains accept as reality and what is actually reality. In a lot of books, movies and shows that are told from the mainly from first person or limited third, we in some sense trust what the narrator is telling us. Why would they lie to us? What motive would they have to do such a thing? In most cases, I believe we take what they say at face value and never question it. In a lot of books though, there are debates on whether the author meant to creator the narrator as unreliable or reliable. I find this subject very interesting in that if the narrator is unreliable, what do we as the reader come to accept as reality? 

  This is the main focus or one of them of Stutter Island. At the start you believe what the main character says because you have no reason not to, but when you get to the end and realize he is actually insane, you go back and question everything he told you. I think it brings up another point , though. How much do we trust the doctors that are treating him? See just more questions. 

   In the end anything is possible and that is what I like about it so much. It is an overall fantastic mystery, mixed with psychological horror that keeps you guessing even after you are finished. I really can't wait to read more from this author