Book Review: Jonathan's Legacy by Hans Hirschi

Jonathan’s Legacy by Hans Hirschi, is the 3rd and last installment of the Jonathan Series. The man who never writes a follow up on a story, wrote two follow ups to the first book Jonathan’s Hope, which should tell you all something about this trilogy of books. I’ll tell you this upfront, there are few things from my point of few that can measure up to Jonathan and Dan and that’s not saying that Marc, Parker, Cody, Adam aka Hwan or any of the other characters of this story doesn’t matter or aren’t likable, or annoying for that matter, they all are and they bring the story to its completion.

I read Jonathan’s Legacy a while back, but life hasn’t allowed me to have the energy to put words to paper, so even though the story isn’t fresh in my mind I think it has given me some time to reflect on a few things. What I like most about Jonathan’s Legacy is that it is a continuance of the two prior books, what happened back then is still very much a huge part of this story and in this case Mark who the books is foremost about isn’t all back to peachy normal and unaffected by what happened in the last book. It would be so easy to make it years later or what not and just let live. But I think my dear friend, Hans Hirschi, is very much like myself a bit of a masochist when it comes to writing stories, he loves feeling the pain of his characters as a tool to write and that is also why his books are so emotionally grabbing, for the lack of a better word.

Another thing that I loved about this story was the the part were Parker and Cody together with Marc and Adam starts helping street kids, I simply love Josh and the connection he finds both with Marc and Adam but especially with Adam. There you see the hint of the sun about who Adam really is, and I don’t know how else to put it “the life inside of him”. Parker and Cody are fantastic characters and together they are magic. This brings me to Marc, I’ll be honest at first I had a hard time for Marc, not so much that I didn’t like him but he was so damn indecisive and that drove me nuts, this when he met Jonathan. But that disappeared pretty quickly when you just continued reading Jonathan’s Promise, and got to know him and Hans really allowed us to get to know him well. Now I love Marc and it broke my heart when things ended as they did. Again the ending of Jonathan’s Promise another proof of Hans Hirschi’s masochistic or maybe it is sadistic side, (winks).

Now to my one and only problem with this book, Adam. I like him, I do, I even think he’s a great guy for Marc just because he’s so caring about both Marc and Josh, wanting them to have everything so they can be happy. He’ll bend over backward for those he loves, but damn someone needs to get this man off the prozac, because really he’s so controlled all the time! Nothing affects him, he doesn’t get mad at anyone ever when the rest of us would have a hissy fit the size of Texas, he doesn’t get upset not even at his parents for treating him like crap, he forgives everything, understands everything and everything that hits him is very kumbaya. I know he’s Asian, and the stereotypical view on them, is that they are very controlled, and well mannered, but boy there were a few times when I wanted to shake him and just tell him to wake the hell up! He just sort of is. He exist.

But the beauty of this book is that even though Jonathan is gone, Dan is gone and even Sean is gone since long time ago, they all, all three of them live on in this last book too. It is all about them actually in the end and that is what makes this book so remarkable. Must read for anyone who loves a great story that takes you for a roller coaster ride through life!