Wish you well

Wish you well by David BaldacciBook ReviewGenre FictionRating 4/5A departure from David Baldacci! Many times I had to go back to check whether it was really David Baldacci only!It starts like any other David Baldacci, a car ride which you know will go bad! But then when it really happens is when you realise that the setting is not the present times but in the 1940s!The family loses the Father and mother becomes catatonic. The boy called Oz and Girl named Lou then are sent along with their mother to their grandmother Louisa!City dwellers after that big shock find another shock where they would now have to settle down in a village close to a mountain which was described by the father in his novels!One gloomy thing to another leads to them slowly coming to terms of their life. Learning to farm and riding mules to coal mining to getting to give birth to animals!The picture has been painted so nicely that you can imagine doing these things!Lou is the girl who must become old and cold at an young age! One loss after another makes her a realist and pessimist. But she is the strong willed character who may falter in between but still be there for her brother and mother!Oz is innocence personified in a little boy with eternal optimism and belief that it will all be better someday!Louisa the grandmother who for the better part of the novel is the iron willed strong minded and well balanced village lady whom you do not want to mess with! She is the bridge who joins the pessimism and optimism of her grand kids!Cooper the lawyer and perhaps their only literate friend is a rare man of character and good will!The simple times doesn’t mean that the time was simple but it simply means that people were simple who would not hold back! In these times you know who is good and who is bad! No twists or turns!As the family gets by they are stuck with a tragedy involving their friend Diamond who is another sweet character providing the much needed comic relief in an otherwise sombre narration!Ably assisted by the house hand Eugene, they try to overcome one problem and another to finally come to a much deserved happy ending!This is of course only because the setting is 1940 when happy ending was the norm!The eternal fight between man and environment and village folks and capitalists has been poignantly described!Was expecting a thriller by David Baldacci and instead got an emotional rollercoaster!
Not that I am complaining!
In the era of negativity, this novel some old song gives you the warmth which you need but never get!Wish you well is like the wishing well which delivers!This has been made into a movie which I want to see!