The Most Dangerous Thing [Hardcover]

 

The Most Dangerous Thing [Hardcover]

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (August 23, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061706515
• ISBN-13: 978-0061706516
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  

---

Related Product

TIME for Kids BIG Book of Why: 1,001 Facts Kids Want to Know (Time for Kids Magazine) [Hardcover]

The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

---

Customer Reviews

Lippman explores a mythologized childhood in the woods that skirts Dickeyville, a suburb just inside Baltimore. Five children, Gwen, tomboy Mickey and the wild Halloran brothers, Sean, Tim and Gordon (Go-Go), spend their summers exploring, far exceeding the boundaries of their parents' permission to remain on the outskirts of the wilderness. The unity of five, Go-Go the youngest, following the older kids like a happy puppy, gradually evolves with the onset of adolescence, until a fateful summer where a ramshackle cottage is the scene of tragedy the night of a fearsome hurricane. Thirty-two years later, Go-Go is dead, either by accident or suicide, his descent into bad behavior long a familiar theme in the Halloran family. Go-Go's history is littered with secrets, the long habits of parents keeping silent about bad things infecting five friends who have secrets of their own. None of them have survived that final summer unscathed, brought together finally by the loss of the boy who raptly copied everything they did and hid the ugliest secret of them all.
The narrative voice dissects the lives of each, Gwen, Tim, Sean, Go-Go and Mickey (who has changed her name to McKey). But Lippman fleshes out these pivotal characters with their mothers and fathers, the family patterns, the facades of marriage and secrets passed from one generation to another. Often the pages feel weighted with regrets, of mistakes made and roads not taken: a beautiful, artistic mother who once dreamed of Paris and painting; a woman who trades on the artifice of her body even as her beauty fades to blowsy, changing men like costumes; fathers who act on behalf of their children, adding another layer of deceit to an already senseless tragedy; adolescents eager to explore the adult world and taste forbidden fruit, only later to be burdened with the consequences of their carelessness.
In a provocative and thoughtful novel, Lippman is not content to let events drive her story, delving relentlessly into personalities, motives, the collision of egos and the instinct for self-preservation. Guilt is reduced to nearly equal portions, a collective tragedy, a collective secret that begs for release. As expected, the truth provides a measure of relief, the breaking of silence the only palliative to now-adult lives filled with mistakes and opportunities. Humanity is, after all, a complicated thing. Lippman avoids the easy dismissal or the facile explanation. No, this is murkier territory, where only one body remains buried, secrets intact. Luan Gaines/2011.

3.5 stars.
After I finished I WOULD KNOW YOU ANYWHERE and loved it, I was eager to purchase Laura Lippman's latest THE MOST DANGEROUS THING.
The book is very well written and explores childhood friendships and childhood secrets. The story goes back and forth from the late 70's to current time. Every chapter is narrated by a different character which is fine, but sometimes I found it hard to figure out who was talking at the time. The story flows very smoothly but I almost want to say there is "much ado about nothing". I was expecting something horrific, terrible and completely different than what actually happens.
When I finished the book I said "what"? That's it? I guess my feelings stemmed from the whole book leading up to this secret lie or cover up which I just didnt think was so horrible. (bad, mind you, but not horrible to cause the feelings and depths everyone took to hide it)
Loved her characters and their development but just felt let down after it was finished. I will say I am glad I bought it because I was entertained but just let down by the ending.
Ps. This is a very personal book for her as she is writing some of the characters and the setting from her actual childhood, maybe that had something to do with it.