This Is Not Forgiveness (review)

Quiet, sensitive Jamie is nothing like his reckless, violent brother Rob, especially since Rob got back from Afghanistan. Caro, a dangerous girl with a mysterious past and secretive present, has uses for both Jamie and Rob. Jamie offers her cover and legitimacy as she pursues her clandestine protest activities, taking the Red Army Faction as her heroes in staging a contemporary British resistance to the wars in the Middle East. Rob is her tool (or so she thinks): his experiences in the war have heightened his appetite for violence to the point of pathology, so she enlists his help in a plan to stage an event that will draw attention to her cause. All of this is lost on Jamie, however, who only wants Caro to love him. When he learns that she is sleeping with both him and his brother, he determines to get her out of his life, but by then they are all in too deep for things to end well. Caro’s and Rob’s plans are shrouded in mystery throughout most of the narrative here, keeping the focus on Jamie’s and Caro’s on-again, off-again romance and Rob’s deteriorating mental state. Hints from Caro heighten suspense; it’s clear from the opening scene, where Jamie contemplates what to do with Rob’s ashes, that things turn out badly, but all details are withheld until the climactic last minute. Meanwhile, Jamie’s insecurities and his helpless devotion to Caro, Rob’s memories of his wartime experience, and Caro’s somewhat naïve determination to connect with a cause bigger than herself create a poignant portrait of the varieties of drift that characterize contemporary adolescent experience.