Review: Good story, needs work
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2014
I received a copy of this book in exchange for a non-reciprocal review.The book could use editing for various things. I had a PDF file, so I can't say if things were same in the Kindle version, but here's a couple examples:Page 7: "Alix was disgusted by the thought.The figure..."The indent for the first paragraph is shorter than the indent for the start of the next paragraph here.Page 17: "He crouched in front of, Yvonne and slowly looking him over."Page 25: "He says that he was attacked first"Page 34: "Other times, Fagan and Xaver would hang out at a bar, drinking tall mugs of beer that Alix would distasteful, preferring a classy, well-aged wine."I understand how easy it is to miss an error in hundreds of pages. An editor would help catch more of those as well as help clean up other things. For example,"Fagan - Randall to his parents, but only because they believed in calling him by his dreadful first name - stepped out of the driver's side and expertly closed his door without any sound."They're just starting a hunt and the part about his name doesn't belong. It would be better to find a way to work it in, if necessary, another time. Or, better yet, show it. Have his parents use his first name when talking to him.There was also something odd that I haven't seen before.In places in the book a word will be crossed out. At first I thought this was perhaps the author making some sort of remark and then continuing on with the story, but then it also appeared in spots where that wouldn't make sense.Page 91: "He tried to keep his voice steady but (it) this new information was a bit disturbing."Since there are two authors, it makes me wonder if something like this happened while they were passing the document back and forth between each other and changing things, and somehow some of the corrections are still in the text with a strike-through.And sometimes there's things that don't make sense. Cyn is given a button down shirt. She chooses to only button the top part so that her stomach is still exposed. Two pages later she's asking if she can have a coat because she's cold. If she's cold I would imagine the first reasonable thing to do is button up the shirt.As far as descriptions, I usually had a description to go with a character except for the group of Scough. When they were introduced, there was a paragraph of description for them, and I wasn't sure which description went to which name for a lot of them.There was a lot of repeatedly used words as well (everyone chuckles all the time).There's also the issue of Alix and gender. I didn't care if he wanted to be considered male or female, but this is a tricky subject. For awhile it wasn't clear if Alix wanted to be regarded as male or female or if he didn't care what people called him, but by the end of the book it was clear - Alix repeatedly and consistently wanted to be considered male. He had a desire to go back to his previous life, but in his current state he wanted to be considered a man.It's one thing for demons on another world to be uninformed and confused about it, but for the people around Alix it was disrespectful when they would change pronouns on him or decide at will to go against the gender he preferred to go by. Tackling a subject like this, it's necessary to understand what would be considered okay and what wouldn't be, otherwise characters can come off like jerks when they aren't meant to be. Luckily I don't recall too many situations where Alix was addressed in person as the wrong gender, although people did bring it up his original name several times.There was one other issue that came to mind. I believe Cyn was supposed to be 15. I don't know the ages of all the people who expressed and interest in her, but at least a few of them were old enough that they should be locked up for it. I'm not sure how old Mira was, but I was under the impression she was pretty young, too.All of that aside, I can say I did enjoy the story and I think there were a lot of good, fleshed out characters. The copy I had, at least, had many errors that were still included in the text for some reason. I think with an editor to go over it, and to comb through and get rid of errors, telling-instead-of-showing, repetition and inconsistencies, this could be made into an exciting, fast-paced adventure. There's a lot to work from and the world that was built up was fine and the characters were overall enjoyable. I'd love to see this book fixed up.Right now, I think I'd give it about a 3.5.