The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine: book review
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine Overview: Going by the summary on the back of the book, this is a story about three Belfast mothers who are brought together by each of their sons being accused of sexual assault by the same girl after an incident at a houseparty. While this is certainly one component of the book, I question if it is truly the heart of the book. Clearly, though, this is a hard book to boil down to its plot because the happenings of the book are somewhat irrelevant. I guess I would call this a book about four Belfast families with voices incorporated from every inch this story reaches. It is a book that addresses the realities of sexual assault and reporting a case, but it is also a book about grief, about family and the many unconventional forms it can take, about how perspective is warped and ideals are lost. It is, maybe, mostly, a book about parental love and how complicated that can be. Overall: 4.5 This is a difficult book to pin down. It’s brilliant, but it...