Monday, March 14, 2011

Elijah's Coin by Steve O'Brien


Elijah's Coin is a short book about a young man who is headed down the wrong path in life. While he is in the middle of committing a crime, a mysterious man who introduces himself as Elijah King catches him and promises simply not to turn him into the police if he meets with him three times and really takes his lessons to heart.

Even though I can appreciate the message that this book was trying to send, I feel like it went about it in the wrong way. First, the book was so short that I didn't really get to know any of the characters and I didn't really care what happened to Tom (the main character). Also, I felt the lesson was very in your face and it could have been handled in much subtler way. This book is a good attempt at a meaningful message and a heart but it just fell flat for me.

Also, this book is broken up into three parts. The first part is all about Tom figuring out what the lesson is, although the HOW of how he figures it out is somewhat confusing. He has this...epiphany and that's it. The second part of the book is about how he is applying this lesson. This part introduced a lot of new characters in rapid succession that, again, I really didn't feel like I got to really know any of them.

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.