1st Book Review: The Emperor of Ocean Park

Ok, to start off, this book was INCREDIBLY long. Over 650 pages in fact. It took me almost two days to read this, and for me, that's a long time... very long. It was written by Stephen L. Carter, who ironically happens to be a law professor at Yale University. It's ironic because his main character in this book, Misha/Talcott Garland also happens to be a law professor at a school in a place called Elm Grove, which apparently resembles the lay-out of New Haven. The author actually has a three page disclaimer explaining that despite all the apparent parallels b/w his life and his fictional character, they are in fact NOT one and the same.

Anyways, the book starts out with the death of Misha's father, simply referred to as "Judge" b/c he was a Federal Appeals Court Judge, and was a Supreme Court Nominee. He was forced to decline the nomination because of embarrassing circumstances that came out while he was testifying in front of Congress. Back to the present: The Judge has died, supposedly of a heart attack, and the whole Garland family comes together to bury their father.

Misha's older sister, Mariah, who married extremely well, and is a huge conspiracy theorist;
Addison, his older brother, who was the favored first-born son who has many problems especially with the law;
Misha, who is a law professor that nobody seems to like and his marriage is falling apart despite the denials of both him and his wife;
Kimmer (Kimberly), Misha's wife, who was recently chosen to be a candidate for the Federal Court of Appeals, and worries that her husband's family may ruin her chances of a nomination;
Abby, the baby sister, who was killed in a hit-and-run, from which the Judge never recovered;
Uncle Jack (Jack Ziegler), Abby's god-father, and a well-known criminal who was responsible for destroying the Judge's chances at the bench.

After the funeral, Misha is standing in the cemetery, when Uncle Jack asks him about the "arrangements" that the Judge said Misha would know about, and Mariah believes that her father was murdered and scours every sheet of paper in the Judge's house looking for clues. The "arrangements" cause Misha to go on a modern-day quest in an effort to discover exactly WHO his father is, which is common after the death of a loved one.

During the book, he is constantly followed by suspicious characters, alienates everyone who cares him and comes up with more wild conspiracies than I thought possible. The major flaw of the book was its length only because it was meant to be a thriller, but it was 650 pages, which defeats the purpose. It is almost epic in the sense that it introduces SO many characters and has many different story lines all coming together in the end. It is entertaining in the end though because everything comes together and it is not your typical happy ending.

The underlying theme of the book that gets addressed a few times is that, you can never really know everything about a person, and that many children go on a journey to find out who their parents are, and are often astounded by the results. Final grade: 3.5 stars out of 5.(1 being I stopped it before it was over, 5 being the reason that I read so much)