5 Star review from Mojgan Azar

December 21, 2021

An Excess of …

Stuart Aken’s “An Excess of” is a story about human nature and the conflicts we hold within each of us. The journey takes us from the deck of a sinking ship to the sands of a strange shore and deep into the biases, preconceptions, and deeply held beliefs any one of us may carry with us into the unknown. Aken shows us that we are really not that different from one another, no matter where we come from or what we believe.

Aken develops the characters slowly and carefully as the reader explores the new island home together with the six strangers. Aken reminds us that we are “human, all too human,” often attached as we are to our pasts and our own ideas for the future. The reader will be surprised what lessons are waiting to be learned.

This book comes at an important time: COVID-19 affects us all, stranding each of us in our own proverbial island, tempting us to look inward rather than outward. This book reminds me to acknowledge even the stranger passing by me on the street, because that person has a story, a struggle, and a worldview all their own. What better time to step onto the shores of the unknown with Aken’s group of six than this era of our own opportunity to succeed together or fail in disunity?

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This review appears with others on Goodreads.  You can get a digital or paperback copy of ‘An Excess Of..’ here.