Motivated Reading

So, I've recently been reminded why why I was a bit hesitant about Neuropath when still early into it.

Bakker's pared down style is great and his characters are decent enough, but he doesn't play fair with his information.

In what was read for this entry Thomas figures out Neil's true motive based on a chain of thoughts and events that start with his realization that he is connected to all of the people that Neil has kidnapped. He voted for the congressman, he protested against the businessman, he argued with Nora about a book by the preacher, he had the porn star in his psychology intro course. And, of course, Frankie is his son (so far it seems that yesterday's entry will be off the mark with my speculation about that).

All of this is fine and dandy, but Bakker doesn't dole out these connections throughout the book. Instead he has him come across the connection to Cynthia Powski (the porn star) and then tells us about the other connections outright. Because this is a major thing, and part of the fun of a thriller is trying to work things out for yourself, Bakker effectively shuts us down on that front.

Keeping this information in Thomas' head up to this point while having him boldly think that he had been batting around the other connections, but Powski cemented it as fact, is not a good way to engage readers in your story. However, I've kept on reading because of my curiousity about the Argument, and, particularly over a few pages after this connection was made, wondering "so what?" - what's Neil's real motive?

Well.

That question at least finally got answered in this section.

Neil is doing all of these things and showing them to Thomas because, at least so far as Thomas thinks, he's trying to overcome his own shame - the shame he feels for being in love with Thomas.

If this is the twist, then it's pretty twisty, but definitely not as grandiose as I had expected from the book's blurbs. Bakker does a fine job of explaining why and how Neil's shame would work as a motive, though.

Still, Tom and Sam are now about to confront Neil, and the next bit of the book will indeed be the conclusion.