Penitence
Fiction
Celadon
January 28, 2025
Hardcover/Audio
320
Purchased/Library
For readers of Ann Patchett and Celeste Ng, Penitence is a poignant exploration of love and forgiveness. It’s a suspenseful, addictive page-turner filled with literary insight that compels readers to consider whether each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.
When a shocking murder occurs in the home of Angie and David Sheehan, their lives are shattered. Desperate to defend their family, they turn to small-town lawyer Martine Dumont for help, but Martine isn’t just legal counsel—she’s also the mother of Angie’s first love, Julian, a now-successful New York City criminal defense attorney. As Julian and Angie confront their shared past and long-buried guilt from a tragic accident years ago, they must navigate their own culpability and the unresolved feelings between them.
Spanning decades, from the ski slopes of rural Colorado to the streets of post-9/11 New York City and back again, Kristin Koval’s debut novel Penitence is an examination of the complexities of familial loyalty, the journey of redemption, and the profound experience of true forgiveness.
My review:
First thing to point out is that this is a debut novel that to me did not read like one at all! As heartbreaking as this was, I was engaged throughout. It reminded me a lot of any early Jodi Picoult novel. Her novels, and this one, have a moral dilemma that has you questioning what you would do in certain situations. In the case of this novel, a young girl has shot her brother, and the parents are left trying to cope with loss and forgiveness over an unspeakable tragedy. You also follow the young daughter as she is incarcerated and on trial, all of which at a young age is a lot to undertake. The author handles the emotions and thoughts of these characters in such a manner that you can't help but feel empathy for them all. We also follow the two defense lawyers for the girl, and the early relationship between one of them and the mother. The only qualm I have is that I wanted a bit more from the ending. I'm not a reader who has to have everything tied up in a bow, but there was an aspect of this that I felt sure was going to be revealed in the end, and it wasn't. Maybe it's because my theory was wrong, but I never found out, so it left me wanting a bit more. This was so tragic, yet such a compelling read.
While one of the categories this falls into is thriller, I wouldn't go into it expecting that. To me this is literary fiction at its finest. The theme that runs through this and to me exemplifies the purpose of the novel is the following: Is each of us more than the worst thing we've ever done? I look forward to what this author has in store next.
