Tania's Book Review

The Hour I First Believed
by Wally Lamb

There are a few authors whose books I will buy as soon as they’re published, without even knowing what they’re about – and Wally Lamb is one of them. When I heard he’d just released The Hour I First Believed, I immediately went to Borders and bought it.

When I started reading it and realized the book is based on the factual events of the Columbine shootings and how that tragic event profoundly affects two of the main characters’ lives, I thought “Uh-oh.” I assumed the entire book would be about Columbine’s aftermath and I wasn’t feeling prepared to deal with 700+ pages of emotional turmoil.

The book contained plenty of tragedy, but it was about so much more than the Columbine shootings. It actually felt like two books in one. Basically the narrator and his wife, who are teachers at Columbine, move back to Connecticut from Colorado after the attack to try and reclaim some peace and happiness – but like the “butterfly flapping its wings” anecdote, one event leads to another which triggers another until their lives are turned upside down yet again. In the midst of all this, the narrator discovers that everything he thought to be true about his family and heritage is full of fabrications and secrets. He ends up on a rocky journey to self-discovery, which involves a fascinating history of his family that goes back for several generations.

What’s interesting about the book is that the narrator, Caelum, isn’t entirely likeable. He’s a bit of a jerk, a bit selfish, has some anger management issues, and can’t connect with people emotionally. On the one hand you pity him for everything he has to endure, and on the other hand you want to shake him. Although I’ve read other reviews of the book where readers disliked the fact that they couldn’t “connect” with the narrator and didn’t care about him, I liked that his faults made him more like a real person – someone who isn’t perfect. And by the end of the novel, you realize why he has some of those flaws.

The book started a little slow for me, by once I got to the halfway point I couldn’t put it down.

The verdict: 4 stars out of 5