The Execution of Noa P. Singleton
by Elizabeth L. Silver
Copyright: 2013, 2014
Pages: 308
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: Dec. 12 – Dec. 21, 2014
Challenge: No challenge
Yearly count: 51
Format: Print
Source: Blogging for Books
Series: N/A
Blurb: Noa P. Singleton never spoke a word in her own defense throughout a brief trial that ended with a jury finding her guilty of first-degree murder. Ten years later, she sits on death row in a maximum-security penitentiary, just six months away from her execution date.
Meanwhile, Marlene Dixon, a high-powered Philadelphia attorney who is also the mother of the woman Noa was imprisoned for killing, shows up for a visit. She claims to have changed her mind about the death penalty and will do everything in her considerable power to convince the governor to commute Noa’s sentence in return for the one thing Noa can trade: her story. Marlene wants to understand the events that led to her daughter’s death -e vents that only Noa knows of and has never shared. Inextricably linked by murder but with very different goals, Noa and Marlene wrestle with the sentences life itself can impose while they confront the best and worst of what makes us human.
Review: I received a copy of this book for free from Blogging for Books, all opinions expressed below are my own.
I requested this book months ago from Blogging for Books. For whatever reason, I never got around to it until now. And I have to say that I’m mixed on my feelings of this book.
Here’s the deal. You’ve got Noa – a 35-year-old woman on death row for killing Sarah Dixon. Then you’ve got Marlene, Sarah’s mother, an attorney who comes to Noa six months before her execution date to get the real story of what happened that New Year’s Day when Sarah was murdered. You’ve also got some supporting characters mentioned throughout, Noa’s mother, Noa’s best friend from childhood, Noa’s father whom she reconnected with after high school, and Oliver, an attorney assisting Marlene.
And through all those characters, you the reader has to figure out what really happened the night that Sarah Dixon was murdered. And let me tell you, it’s a wild and crazy web to unweave. As a reader, I didn’t know who to believe. I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t know which way was up at certain times. This part was the interesting part.
But then there were some issues that ultimately dragged this book down for me. The writing … so over-the-top descriptive and unnecessarily so … it really didn’t work for me. When I went into this book I was expecting it to be a really fast, exciting read. Not even close. Ms. Silver definitely has a way with words … just not one that is to my taste. I’d like to think I’m relatively intelligent, and I am college educated, but there were entire sections of the book that was completely over my head just because of the way they were worded.
Overall, I liked the premise of this book. And really it had a lot of potential. But the writing really took some of my enjoyment away from this one.
So, bottom line … it was an okay book that I don’t regret reading, but it’s not one that I would necessarily recommend to everyone I know.
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