review: don't go by lisa scottoline

While he serves as an Army doctor in Afghanistan, Mike’s wife Chloe dies leaving behind their infant daughter Emily. Fortunately, Mike doesn’t have much time left in Afghanistan and his in-laws agree to take custody of Emily during that time. But then tragedy strikes Mike’s unit and he’s guilt-tripped into staying another year. Mikes loses so much during his deployment: friends die, he’s wounded, and Emily starts calling her aunt and uncle “mommy and daddy;” he also discovers through Chloe’s autopsy that she had an affair which sends him into even more of a downward spiral.

Lisa Scottoline really piles it on throughout Don’t Go. Just when you think things can’t get worse for Mike, Scottoline has him make outrageously stupid decisions causing even more problems. Fictional characters have never inspired so much rage in me before now; I hated all of the main characters who seemed to have no impulse control and were only looking out for themselves. Much is made at the end about Emily’s best interests, but the adults involved all behaved selfishly despite Scottoline’s attempt to wrap everything up neatly at the end. The twists at the end were pretty ridiculous, especially the extra dig regarding the partner in Mike’s medical practice. And everything related to Chole’s affair and the conspiracy to cover it up was beyond belief.

About the audiobook: Jeremy Davidson (Army Wives) does a good job with the male voices, but his attempt at Danielle’s (Chloe’s sister) French accent was awful. I don’t think I would’ve hated her as much if the accent wasn’t so annoyingly pretentious. The audiobook was published by Macmillan Audio in 2013 and runs 11 hours.
2/5
Review copy provided by Audiobook Jukebox.