Ever have a love/hate relationship with a book? As I read Homer Hickam's The Far Reaches I realized that was exactly the quandary presented me. One minute I enjoyed the storyline and the characters and the next I was wondering if I wanted to continue on. I had the same experience with the movie Saving Private Ryan. If you made it through the first awful bloddy 27 minutes of the landing on Omaha Beach, the rest of the movie was thoroughly enjoyable.
Hickam gets a bit graphic in his portrayal of the battle to take some islands in the South Pacific. But once you get past that, his characters and his storyline are quite interesting. The storyline involves a pretty Irish nun, a crusty John-Wayne type captain who mows his way through all sorts of barrages from the Japanese, and a love-sick bosun who wonders how he could be in love with a woman who cannot return his love because of her religious vows. Through it all, the nun, Sister Mary Kathleen, tries to hide her deepest secret sin but Captain Josh Thurlow begins to piece the puzzle together and knows it involves the Japanese commander of the island she so desperately wants a small band of American soldiers to win back for her.
This is action packed albeit a bit too descriptive for me and Hickam doesn't hold back on some of the crusty language I'm sure abounded in this type of situation. Overall though the book was definitely worth reading. Certainly a different type of book than Rocket Boys and Sky of Stone. This is the third of four books in the Josh Thurlow series so if you enjoy it, there are three others to read.
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