Review: The Shunned by Jay Hughes

It's been difficult to avoid many of the negative things said about this book at Good Reads or some other review sites so I have to admit that my expectations going into reading this book were not particularly high.  After reading the book, I found that it was slightly better than I had expected.  There wasn't a point when I felt like throwing the book at the wall, or want to stop reading - all criteria for what I would give my 'terrible' grade.  Having said that, it wasn't a good read either, just OK with quite a few things which troubled me or which I felt didn't work.

The book begins with our hero James who works at an organic grocery store.  James ran away from the Amish community three years ago and is a student at Penn State on a scholarship.  A handsome man, Fred, comes in and chats James up, making it known that he'd be in for a hook up if James was interested.  James knows that he's gay but has no experience with men at all.  He's very willing to set aside his virgin status so after his shift he meets with Fred and they go back to Fred's large house.  Fred is a defence lawyer who has defended members of the mob.  Unfortunately for Fred the mob bosses were not too happy that his last client ended up in jail and they storm his house trying to kill him.  Fred and James escape but are now on the mob hit list so they have to go into witness protection.  What better place to hide the two men than back in the Amish community where James had escaped from?  James is not happy, but realises that he must go back if only to keep him and Fred safe until they can testify.

The first part of the book moves at quite a swift pace, and although the whole set up with the mob storming Fred's house was a little unrealistic, there was an urgency in the action sequences that meant I was propelled along with what was happening.  I could forgive some of the inconsistencies with the way the FBI and the police operate because I knew that these first few scenes were just a set up to James having to return home, which formed the basis of the novel and the meat of the story.

It was once James returns back to the Amish community that I began to feel rather uncomfortable with the story.  Prior to going back, James isn't too complimentary about the Amish, something which I felt fitted in with his teenage memories of the bad-treatment he received at the hand of his father.  However, once he returns to the community, the negative descriptions of the Amish increase so that I was frankly quite astounded at how badly the Amish were portrayed.   There is nothing positive in this book about the Amish or their way of life, except for the portrayal of James' mother who is only shown in a positive light because she breaks the rules of the community by trying to help James.  I fully admit that some of what is shown in this book may be true, but to completely slander a whole community of people in this way, to show them as having no redeeming features whatsoever, was reprehensible, especially as the author takes it a step further and shows that many of the community leaders and members are behaving like hypocrites by teaching one thing, but then breaking the rules themselves.  I wondered whether the author was ex-Amish and bore a grudge for the way he was raised as that would explain why he showed the Amish in this way, but no, the author isn't originally from the Amish community.  For me this was the hardest part of the book to accept and it made me very feel very uneasy to read so many bad things about the Amish.

Another aspect which didn't work too well was in the relationship between Fred and James.  They barely spend any time in each other's company and yet within a few days they are supposed to have a happy ending.  James also spends most of the book hating Fred for being the reason why he is forced to go back to the Amish community and yet has a complete about-face in the last few pages.  I also found it difficult to like either of the men.  James is a real whiner and spends most of the book feeling sorry for himself, and Fred is a selfish and rather unpleasant man who seems only concerned about himself.  Another part which turned me off James was a rather baffling episode with another gay Amish man which had no bearing on the plot and seemed to have been included only so that there was an anal sex scene.  What it did show was a rather cruel and callous streak to James who seduces the young man and instantly forgets about him.

The story itself is rather preposterous with clichéd portrayals of the mob, clumsily characterised FBI agents who seem to blunder about with no clue as to what they are doing, and a whole range of other unsympathetic characters.  For me what saved this book from being a completely bad read was the character of undercover agent Abraham who I actually rather liked, along with his family.  There were also a few genuinely heartfelt moments, such as the point when James meets his father for the first time in three years and sees how changed he is, or when James reads the letters his mother has kept for him, or an incident towards the end of the book involving James' brother Jacob or the final scene between James and his father.  It was at these points when I was most engaged with the story and what pulled the story from being a truly terrible read.

Unfortunately, I can't in all honesty recommend this book to read.  There were some good things about the story, but my overall feeling was that it was a prejudiced diatribe against the Amish people wrapped up in a flimsy love story with some outlandish action sequences.  Grade: 'Poor'.

Buy this book HERE.