Allen Levi

Fiction 2023 | 387 pages

I belong to a Facebook group, Book Club Favorites.  (Unfollowed two other groups.  Book readers are extremely prolific!

Anyway, over the last few months, Theo of Golden received an unbelievable number of posts and incited a plethora of discussion.

"You must read this book.  I loved it!”

"I fell asleep reading it.  Boring."

"An inspirational book about kindness."

"Too spiritual."

'I don't need a feel-good book to tell me to be kind."

"Might be my favorite book of all time."

"Way over-hyped."

"Loosely disguised Jesus figure."

I was curious to see where I would land.  There was very little middle ground. Readers loved it or hated it.

Virtually everyone wrote about the story, and no one wrote about the writing.  I will change that direction with my review.

Theo is a well-traveled, wealthy man of 86 who decides to move south from New York City for a year or so.  He moves to Golden, Georgia, and meets and befriends many people in this small Southern town.  On one of his first days, he enters The Chalice ... a coffee shop that makes European coffee just the way he likes it.  On the walls of The Chalice are 92 penciled and pen&ink portraits, created by a local artist.  We learn about how Theo buys each portrait, one at a time, and gives it to the person in the portrait, nearly always inspiring deep conversation. Theo is generous, kind, compassionate, and a superb listener.

That is the story line, and it is an interesting one. 

Unfortunately, I felt the writing was awful.  I don't know if Allen Levi did this on purpose, but it wrecked the book for me.  The character of Theo is one-dimensional, tracing paper thin in character development, sophomoric, shallow.  There is no depth, no texture, no nuance in his personality.  Much as I love debut novels, I will not be looking forward to his second book.

And the ending is contrived, all too convenient. Writing a letter to close up all the loose ends the author didn’t manage to do in the plot line is also a sign of an unsophisticated author.

I cannot think of a single person I would recommend read Theo of Golden. Therefore, by definition, this book receives two hearts.

June 2026