I don't usually like books that try to teach a lesson (The Shack), but I really enjoy Steve O'Brien's characters. I think this is an author to watch and do well with a book in a genre I enjoy more. ( )

"...your life is not about you. It is about what you create. It is not what you gather. It is not the accolades you get during your lifetime. Your family, your friends, the people you come in contact [with] in your lifetime will rarely remember what you said. They may remember some of the things you accomplished in your lifetime. But I guarantee you, they will remember, vividly and distinctly, how you made them feel."

This is how Elijah describes success to Tom in their first encounter. The lessons Elijah has for us all are simple, but if implemented correctly can change lives.

This book was a quick read, but definitely one that I will come back to again and again.

First let me say that the quality of the book, the binding, paper and cover were all nice quality, I wasn't sure they put this much into books any more.

Now for the book, it was well written, and started out really strong laying out the events that led Tom down the path he chose. It then briefly got into his struggle to find Elijah. After that it seemed like cliff notes to get to the end. No story line was developed, and all of a sudden it just seemed to end.

It just left me wanting for more, because a lot of what was there was very good.
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Tom Wagner was in trouble. He had just been caught trying to rob a store by a lone security guard, who introduces himself as Elijah King. Elijah offers to not turn Tom in to the police if Tom agrees to meet with him three times. Elijah tells Tom that he’s going to learn a lesson about life. Tom thinks the guy is nuts but will do anything to keep from getting in trouble with the cops.

Elijah tells Tom that he helped three other guys learn this same lesson and now they are very successful. One is a big-time lawyer, another is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and the last one works at the city mission. While Tom doesn’t understand how the last guy is in the same category of success as the other two, he realizes that Elijah’s lesson could be worth learning. After all, it would be great to be that rich and powerful.

When Tom goes to meet Elijah for the third and final lesson, Elijah has seemingly disappeared. Tom can’t find him anywhere, but he wants to finish learning the lesson so he can be successful. So, Tom sets out to find Elijah. His search leads him to the three men Elijah had mentioned mentoring.

Steve O’Brien has created a character that many teenagers and young adults will be able to identify with. Tom is not perfect; he’s made mistakes. When the reader first meets Tom, he’s in a bad place. He is still very angry about his mother’s death and that anger leads him to make some bad choices. Elijah’s lessons make Tom realize how he can be a better person and make a difference in the world.

Although this is a life-lesson book, it isn’t preachy. O’Brien was able to create characters and situations that demonstrated the lessons he wants his readers to see without lecturing or talking down to them. Even if you’re not looking for a life lesson, it’s a good story.

During the lessons, Elijah asks some tough questions and encourages Tom to think for himself and to dig deeper into the answers. While Elijah was confusing sometimes, I didn’t feel bad for not understanding him because Tom didn’t get it either. Eventually, Tom does understand what Elijah was saying, then he explains it to the reader. ( )