Review: Stash

Title: Stash
Author: David Klein
Publisher: Broadway Books (2010)
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 352
Book Source: ARC from Publisher

When Gwen Rain decides to buy a small bag of marijuana from an old friend she has no idea how this decision will affect her life. It sets off a chain of events that she has little control over and shows up all the cracks in her seemingly perfect world. Gwen is forced to make many moral choices and by the end of it all two people are dead and she is left with questions about her own role in those deaths. For this stay at home mum the whole situation is out of her range of normal and causes a lot of anxiety for herself and her family.

Stash is all about the moral dilemma's that are part of contemporary suburban life. It poses questions about how individuals deal with the pressures of modern day existence while also maintaining some level of ethical responsibility for their actions. In the confusion and stress of juggling marriage, family, career and financial pressures sometimes one small choice can bring everything crashing down.

Stash is written from multiple perspectives and is quite suspenseful and fast paced. The writing style as well as the content had a very contemporary feel. It is a very plot driven book and the characters are not as thoroughly developed as I generally like. Some characters seemed a bit stereotypical and lacked individuality. The novel was interesting because of its themes and held my attention because of the fast paced and fairly complex plot, but was quite a broad description of suburban life. I would have liked to see creative descriptive details and a greater level of uniqueness so that this book would be more impacting and memorable.