This Is Not Forgiveness (Love, Brothers)

Book Title: This is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees

Topic:  Love, Brothers, War,

Thoughts: This is another one of those three-way love triangles.  Jamie loves Caro, but does she love him or his brother Rob?

When I read chapter one I thought that Rob had died in the War in Iraq, but through Jamie's recollections and interspersed chapters of what Caro and Rob think, I found out what really happened to all three of them and why they are all pulled together and apart.  Each of the characters speak through their own voice and the different fonts help us know whose voice the chapter is told from. 

This is one of those books like To Kill a Mockingbird, in which after finishing the novel, a good idea is to go back and read chapter one again.  Everything will click.

Because the setting is in Britain, I did not know what all the slang and words mean, but that is not a reason to not give this book a try.  While none of the characters are perfect or completely likeable, who is at fault?  Are they responsible for what they did or is someone else: society, peers, parents to blame? Can Jamie and his family forgive themselves and can we forgive them either?