Jimmy

Robert Whitlow brings Jimmy, a fourteen-year-old boy with a developmental disability, into your life and he will touch your heart and leave you changed. Mr. Whitlow has done an excellent job writing a legal thriller from the mind of a child. He has created a world where relationships and the love of God drives the story to its amazing conclusion. Jimmy, the title character, is a 14-year-old “special needs” child with a below-average IQ. He has mental limitations but possesses a rare quality of inherent goodness. Jimmy’s father is a successful attorney in the small Georgia town where they live, but Jimmy isn’t very close to his father. However, he is extremely attached to his stepmother, who married his father when Jimmy was four years old. Jimmy’s mother abandoned the family when he was almost two. The book is told through Jimmy’s innocent eyes as he becomes a key witness in one of his father’s criminal defense trials, partakes in outings with his devoted but unsaved grandfather, becomes involved in a custody battle when his long-absent birth mother seeks joint custody, begins high school with its challenges and dangers, and ultimately faces a life-and-death situation near the end of the book.

Overall, the book was a good read. It took a few chapters for me to become really interested in the characters, and sometimes the plot seemed to drag a bit, but Whitlow’s prose is good. Several parts of the book are quite humorous and caused me to laugh out loud. Others are frightening, as told from Jimmy’s point of view. Some moments are sad, as well. I felt a bit betrayed by the writer at the end of the novel, but that’s often what happens with bittersweet stories. The novel’s crux is not the plot but the characters, which are developed quite nicely.