Review: The Samaritan by Fred Venturini

The Samaritan

by Fred Venturini

To age is to embrace a slow hurt inside and out, to collect scars like rings on a tree, dark and weathered and sometimes only visible if someone cuts deep enough. Scars keep the past just close enough to touch, but healing is forgetting. Healing invites another cut. Healing is the tide that smoothes away our line in the sand. For life to begin, the damage must be permanent.

- Dale Sampson, The Samaritan

Dale Sampson is a nobody. A small town geek who lives in the shadow of his best friend, the high school baseball star, it takes him years to even gather the courage to actually talk to a girl. It doesn’t go well. Then, just when he thinks there’s a glimmer of hope for his love life, he loses everything.

When Dale runs into the twin sister of the girl he loved and lost, he finds his calling–he will become a samaritan. Determined to rescue her from a violent marriage, and redeem himself in the process, he decides to use the only “weapon” he has–besides a toaster. His weapon, the inexplicable ability to regenerate injured body parts, leads him to fame and fortune as the star of a blockbuster TV reality show where he learns that being The Samaritan is a heartbreaking affair. Especially when the one person you want to save doesn’t want saving.

The Samaritan is a brutally funny look at the dark side of human nature. It lays bare the raw emotions and disappointments of small town life and best friends, of school bullies and first loves, of ruthless profiteers and self-aggrandizing promoters—and of having everything you know about human worth and frailty questioned under the harsh klieg

Pub. Date: February 2011

Publisher: Blank Slate Press
Format: Paperback , 214pp
ISBN-13: 9780982880609
ISBN: 098288060X

Barnes and Nobles: HERE

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My Thoughts

Have you ever thought to yourself " WOW, life sucks!" Well then you have never met Dale Sampson. Ya its cool he can regenrate body parts. But whats the point if the few people you love or care about keep dying, or leaving? Why continue on if you are all alone?

 

Thats exactly how it was for Dale. Noone ever noticed the quiet boy in the corner. And if they did it was just to pick on him. Until one fatefull day During a practical joke , Dale meets Mack "Truck" Tucker. Dale waits for the beating to begin, but it doesn't. Low and Behold Mack actually stands up for him, and from there on out becomes Dale's one and only true friend. Through ups and major downs, Macks always there for Dale. Until that one horrific night, then nothing is ever the same again........

 

I have to admit that I wasn't sure about how I was going to like The Samaritan. It was a first for me in this type of read. And I have to say I really did enjoy the story. But besides the story I really enjoyed Fred's delivery of it. He knows exactly how to say everything but not over doing it with too much. By page 3, I was hooked. I wanted to know where this story was going, and I wanted to know how it was getting there.

 

There were parts of The Samaritan that were just so sad, it makes you wonder if there really are people out there who's lives are similar. At times I wanted to scream at Dale and tell him to get his head out of his butt. Wake up , look around you, things can always be better. You just have to do something. I can understand after that horrible night , it can change a person like nothing else in this world can do. But you, and only you can move forward in life. Look at Mack, no his life wasn't the best, but he was at least living.

 

I thought it was excellent what Dale and Mack planned and put into effect with the fact that Dale can regenerate body parts. No matter what his reasoning behind doing it in the first place. In the end it did truly matter, and he helped alot of people. I couldn't imagine putting yourself through that over and over again. But even if  Dale doesn't realize it or not, and no matter what the public eye says, It takes a very special person to put themselves through that.

 

The only part that I wish was a little different was the end. The story built up, and built up, and we just new that BIG thing was gonna happen, it was just when and how, and then when it was delivered it was short, said and done, then gone. I would have liked to get a little more in depth with the "After". How was Dale, and Mack affected. How their lives went from there.

 

All in all, Fred this was a fantastic read! You delivered an excellent read, and I am glad I did give it a go. I would recommend it to anyone!