I have no doubt that Joshua Braff is a very talented writer. After all, he has a novel out and has appeared in at least one literary magazine. After reading “The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green,” I can only come to one conclusion about the 2004 book.
He’s very lucky to have a famous brother.
That, of course, is Scrubs star Zach Braff. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that “Jacob Green” came out just a few months after the younger Braff hit the big screen with his movie “Garden State.” What a cool story, some agent or editor probably thought. Two brothers with different creative talents on the national stage.
I don’t think Joshua’s book was horrible. It’s just that I really didn’t get much out of it. Jacob is Jewish and dealing with growing up. His father has a temper. His mother has other interests. His father pushes him and his older brother to embrace Judaism, and it works about as well as you’d expect with any teenager and religion. That brings back the temper and the mother’s interest in pursuing education and a career.
All in all, it just seemed a bit bland and flat. I didn’t think the babysitter tempting Jacob or the father flying off the handle really amounted to much of a plot, but that’s what you got. And if you got the same hardcover edition I bought, you also received at least three typos. I’m not perfect, but that just proved me to me that this book was more marketing and less substance.
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