Review: An interesting journey through life, if one can look past the writing issues.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 25, 2014
First and foremost, I want to state that I was given a free copy of this book to do a review on.With that said, I should also point out that this is not really a book that I would have picked up. However, curiosity drew me in, between the cover art and the first few pages."I was never the best in primary school, like the most confident; I was… different. Quiet, in the shadows most of the time. I had friends, but I wasn’t the most frantic out of them; I was the one who joined in, like… the sheep."Specifically this part peaked my interest. Why? Because that was me exactly as a kid too. In my case, relating to Ray Ryan was easy. However, after that my general opinion of the work started to decline a little bit.Author Aiden Riley does a good job on the creative side of his writing but unfortunately, he doesn't do as well on the technical side. There are many pages littered with sentences that are very difficult to get through due to excessive wordiness. Another oddity is his over use of commas and semi colons. I will admit however, that I'm from the US and Riley writes in a UK style, which has quite a few grammatical differences.Having said all that, I do feel that the story that Riley has worked so hard on is well worth reading. Whether the story is actually Riley’s life to paper or a completely made up fiction, it's a fun and enjoyable read. (Minus the technical stuff mentioned above.) All in all, I would rate the story at four stars. Removing one star out of five for all the grammatical issues.Recommendations: Would I recommend this book? I would, however, with the issues in the writing I can’t say how many people would be able to get through it, let alone buy it. I would still recommend it for its story content if nothing else though.Closing thoughts: As Riley journeys past this book and into new genres I do hope that he will pay a little more attention to his writing style. So, in the end I wish him the best of luck with his writing career, both with this book and any new ones he sets his sights on.