Dragons and Garden Peas

Burt Jacoby
iUniverse (2008)
ISBN 9780595474813
Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (7/08)


“Dragons and Garden Peas” had some promise in theory.  The story of Max, an architect who is at the top of his game professionally, if not personally, is suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer.  As expected, he faces a multitude of doctors, tests, treatment plans and surgeries to cure the cancer.  In the midst of his treatment, he reconciles with his wife and takes a sail to Cape Cod to celebrate.
           
On this trip, Max’s wife falls overboard and dies, leaving Max to inevitably find himself to be a murder suspect.  His sole focus now is to gain his freedom and regain control of his life.

In reality, this book was disjointed and mostly unbelievable.  The characters were one-dimensional and the ones that seemed to have a bit more depth were unlikable.  I found Max to be pathetic and selfish and did not find a single connection between any of the characters in this book to ring true.  The story jumped from present to past to present and changed points of view too often to keep up with.  One minute Max is getting a devastating cancer diagnosis; the next minute he is falling in love with some woman he barely met.  He was putting his focus and energy in things that made no sense.
           
To throw the murder aspect into this story seemed needless.  At that point I started to really give up on the story of “Dragons and Garden Peas.”  I wanted to care about Max and what happened to him, but I never could.  I was getting frustrated with how jumpy the story was and it never held my focus for long.  Unfortunately, what could have been a wonderful story of a man’s redemption of himself in the face of death turned out to be a book that was trying to tell too many stories at one time.

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