Review: Tremendous potential - an interesting collection
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 19, 2012
This is a delightful delve into the workings of the mind through a set of stories which find people facing or remembering very different situations. Some events could happen to any of us at any time, others are rather more unusual. Some are wild flights of fancy, others are like memories any of us might recall. What is certain is that it cannot be predicted how we would react in any of these situations: nor can you predict, when you meet these characters, what will happen next. This is what makes the stories believable and interesting. The feelings of being a small boy in Belfast are as authentic as the mental self-torture of a man tracking down spiders in his home. Sometimes, though, the reminiscences took precedence over telling a story. The insight may be fascinating, but I was left wondering where it was heading and did not always find the answer to that.If I could award half stars I would have rated this book at 3.5. It has been well proof read, which was a very pleasant surprise. The main issue I have is the author's use of very long sentences in the earlier stories, often with clauses out of sequence. I was frequently distracted from the story, finding I was rearranging in my mind the long sentence I was reading. First impressions count for a great deal so it's a real shame that my first impression was of poorly constructed sentences. The images being painted were intrinsically very good but I had to work hard to extract them. This collection would benefit dramatically from a good editor's attentions.That said, I would still recommend Fifty/Fifty.