Thursday, May 24, 2012

Too Much Focus on Psychotherapy: Gettin Dunn by Tom Schreck


The opening is full of action. TJ Dunn, survives an ambush in Iraq. Crawling across her Up-Armored-HMMWV (UAH) to get more ammunition, she falls off, breaks her arm, but survives. The UAH she was on moves forward, is hit and explodes. She wakes in the hospital to learn that Trent, her fiance has committed suicide. From there her life shifts into a downward spiral: topless dancing, manning a suicide hotline and lots of psychotherapy.

The focus on TJ's problems and concomitant psychotherapy makes the first half of the book rather slow. I felt we were treated to too many sessions with her therapist. Plus all the hotline scenes were oriented toward active listening and dealing with suicidal callers. The pace speeds up at the end of the book. We get more action as TJ is pursued by the killers.

I found the ending too good to be true, a twist that didn't work. The book was uneven and disappointing. Schreck has an interesting character in TJ. She's tough and smart and tries to fight her way through her problems. However, I felt the plot was weak and unrealistic, not a good way to showcase her.

I can't recommend this book. I found it difficult to get through the early chapters and then the ending was too unrealistic to be appealing. I hoped for something better on the strength of the action in the prologue.

I reviewed this book for the Amazon Vine Program.

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