Review by jvmlcy -- The Spirit of Want by William H. Coles
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Review by jvmlcy -- The Spirit of Want by William H. Coles
The book entitled The Spirit of Want written by William H. Coles is about a strong, independent, ambitious, and career-oriented woman, Lucy who is a lawyer by profession. She got married to an ophthalmologist but was unhappy. One day she received an offer from the firm she works at to handle a case of a TV-evangelist who was accused of underage sex. In the middle of the case, she fell in love with the TV-evangelist. She loses the case and during the appeal, the evangelist escaped to Africa. After losing her career, she leaves her family, new husband, and her child to follow him. Truth is slowly folding about the man she fell in love with and doubts and questions start to form in her head. The moment she came back from Africa, she learned that her family, her husband, and other co-workers hate her and no longer want to have a connection with her. She faces the devastating consequences of her unrequited love as she tries to rebuild a life again without the status, respect, and honor she once had.
The whole plot is beautiful, interesting, and well-thought-out. I love how Coles constantly wrote the character of Lucy as a fearless, independent, and ambitious woman but weak and foolish when it comes to love and still show a small hint of growth to the character. Lucy is the protagonist in the book but is somehow an antagonist as well because of how her character was portrayed.
I love how the author can make me, as a reader, feel different emotions or reactions in every chapter. Example, I just found myself loving the fearless character of Lucy and cheering Luke, her husband, as her love interest in the book then in the next few chapters I am empathetic towards Luke and mad towards Lucy because of her infidelity as a wife and recklessness as a mother, and probably as a lawyer too. But in the next few chapters again, I felt bad towards Lucy because of the consequences she must face and disappointment towards Luke because of how he let her sister, be desperate for him while he was still in the conflict of marriage with her.
What I don’t like about the book is the way it was written. The book is written hastily. The author did not show to the readers how exactly did Lucy fall in love with the evangelist instead it was already said in the next chapter that Lucy is having a sexual relationship with her client. No disclosed flow of events. No clear interaction between characters that can show how their emotions deepen and grew into something else. Everything is very sudden and confusing. Structurally, the whole flow of the story happened fast and in a snap. I also have a lot of unanswered questions that left me hanging. Moreover, I am not satisfied with how the book ended. It somehow has an open-ending therefore, the crave to know what happened to the rest of the characters after the event is huge.
In summary, the book was an interesting and unique but was lacking a thorough and exhaustive flow, so I am giving it a 2 out of 4 stars. If you want a simple, smooth, and low-key interesting plot then this book is perfect for you. But if you want something exceptional, exciting, and thoroughly written then I don’t recommend for you to read this book. Nonetheless, this book is worth giving a try. It contains very minimal profanity and a low-level of R-rated parts.
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The Spirit of Want
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