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Liked It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “31 Hours by Masha Hamilton is a story that will haunt readers long after the covers are closed. Carol Meitzner wakes up suddenly one night with a mother's intuition that something is incredibly wrong with her twenty-one year old son, Jonas. She hasn't heard from him in over a week, which is...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “I was hoping for a good book based on what I read it was about but was very disappointed in the end.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“I was hoping for a good book based on what I read it was about but was very disappointed in the end.”
Sejla wrote this review Monday, March 19, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This is the next book our Book Club, The Happy Bookers will be reading.”
Carrie Boal wrote this review Saturday, January 28, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A beautifully written story about a disillusioned young American man, drawn to the moral righteousness of Islam as introduced to him by a terrorist organizer. As Jonas secretly prepares for the terrorist act he has committed to taking in 31 hours, a vivid picture of New York City emerges in alternating chapters about Jonas's mother, his best friend and her sister, and a homeless man who works the subway and observes its unique "life". Hamilton's portrayal of a home-grown but very human terrorist is thought-provoking and troubling. One plot line seems superfluous and the ending will spur much debate among readers, but the novel is hard to put down and the overall effect is haunting.”
bookappeal wrote this review Monday, August 15, 2011. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Jonas, 21 years old, has been missing for a few days. His mother feels something might be wrong, but then, don’t mothers always worry? Vic, his girlfriend, hasn’t heard from him for a week or so, but maybe he’s finished with her? He’s been a bit distant recently.
JudithAnn wrote this review Tuesday, February 8, 2011. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
At first, no one is terribly worried but after a few more days, they decide to find him.
Meanwhile, Jonas, who turns out to be a taken up into the Muslim community, being brought up agnostic, spends his time in a different house (not his own) preparing for something.
There is also the sister of Vic, Mara, who is quite a bit younger and still living at home. She’s having big problems with the divorce of her parents and her mother’s reaction to it.
The book takes place within a 31-hour time span and the reader can guess that something will happen at the 31st hour.
This book was utterly boring for me. To summarize briefly: in the first 100 pages, the characters were introduced. Nothing much happens until just before page 200, when there finally is some action. The book is 229 pages long.
There was too little action in the book. The author explored themes like mothers having to let go of their adult sons and how a teenage girl deals with the divorce of her parents. That was sort-of interesting but they were not the main story. The main story was Jonas and him going “missing” in the sense that he did not contact his parents or girlfriend even when he knew they must be looking for him.
This story had very little development and eventually, nothing was resolved, not in Jonas’ story, nor in the story of his parents and girlfriend looking for him, nor in the story of Mara dealing with her parents’ divorce.
With what the reader knows, they can easily guess what is going to happen and finish the story themselves. But hey, who is the writer here?
And here we have another problem, the reader indeed can easily guess what is going to happen. In fact, give the reader a bit of the premise of the book, and we can easily guess how the mother reacts, the girlfriend and probably what Jonas is up to, as well. We don’t actually need the book to know this story. In other words, the book stays too close to what may happen in reality. And what happens in reality is often not that interesting. I expected some interesting developments but they never came.
After page 100 I thought of giving up but then, there was one character that I actually liked enough to know a bit more about, and this was Sonny, the vagrant, who spent most of his time in the New York subway begging for money. His story was interesting but also ended too soon.
Each chapter had the New York time and the Mecca time, which I found confusing. I thought that maybe the story would move to Mecca at some point or alternate between Mecca and New York, but this was not the case. The progress of time didn’t help to make the story more suspenseful because at no point did I feel any suspense.
Was there anything, besides Sonny, that I did like? Yes, I did like that the characters were quite realistic and how the writer had given the characters a past. She mentioned small (and bigger) things from the past of the characters that made me think she must have given each character a lot of thought, to make them a complete person.
I also liked it that the New York subway played a large role in the book. This was Sonny’s place of work, and the other characters used it to travel from one place to the next.
I previously read The Camel Bookmobile by this author, which I found slightly more interesting than this book.”
“Very good. Worth reading.”
Cindy wrote this review Wednesday, December 1, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A fascinating and frightening look into the mind of a sincere and dedicated terrorist. I just started reading the book, and I am both terrified and firmly hooked. I dread turning the pages, but find that I cannot look away”
Librarian Jessie wrote this review Sunday, November 28, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Not happy with the ending at all. I need closure!!!!”
karybp wrote this review Friday, July 23, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This book captures every mother's fear of dealing with a child that leaves the roost and cuts off all contact.”
minnie wrote this review Wednesday, June 30, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I've read two of Hamilton's previous novels, "The Camel Bookmobile" and "The Distance Between Us." The 3 books by Hamilton I've read are based on social and moral issues, which is what attracted me to her novels. She's an interesting author, and the reviews of "31 Hours" convinced me to put it on my list, possibly for a book discussion selection. I read the book in one day (it's quite short). What most impressed me was the suspense, which builds quickly and never lets up. There are many characters (perhaps too many) who form a sort of cross-section of New York City life. There's Sonny, the kind homeless man, two divorced couples and their children, one of whom, Jonas, has become disenchanted with society and becomes drawn in by a clever recruiter for a radical Islamist group. During the 31 hours of the title, he is preparing himself to become a human bomb. He'll be one of several suicide bombers stationed throughout the NY subway system. At the conclusion of the book, I felt as though I had read half a book. I wasn't convinced by Jonas's conversion to Islam, and he seemed too intelligent to be taken in by the terrorist group members. His parents were divorced - is this one factor in his unhappiness? Is he unhappy? He thinks the young woman he loves doesn't love him, is this why he doesn't mind ending it all? In the end the story seemed too rushed. I won't tell you how it ends. It would be an interesting book group choice, because I think people would argue about the ending. I decided against using it for my group. ”
Suzanne F wrote this review Monday, June 7, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A naive young American, seduced by a cell of Islamic extremists, prepares for "martyrdom" on the eve of a massive act of terrorism in NYC. Not my usual genre, but I enjoyed this well-written literary thriller.”
Darra W wrote this review Monday, May 31, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
