Review: Interesting Idea Marred By A Lack Of Creativity
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 28, 2011
The premise for this story was good, a bunch of teenagers suddenly find out that they have super powers and set out to discover the who, how and why? Simple enough right?Apparently, not so much. This reads like a technical manual and started off rather abruptly. The writer imbued no nuance or colour to the story or the characters, there was no metaphor, allegory, just nothing, hell I would have been content with a simile. Everything was laid out for the reader. Sam did this this and this, then he did that. Really? No emotions jumped off the pages at me and so I couldn't connect with the characters because they were so very flat, the dialogue was ridiculous as well. The characters speak and interspersed between their lines we get running commentary of the one sided conversation, nay commentary, in Sam's head, which reads much the same way the rest of the book does. An example would be "I can't believe Leesha hasn't screwed her life up, her mom's a total deadbeat. It's good she has her grandparents to depend on when she needs it." Hmmm, why not "Sam marveled that with a deadbeat like Tina for a mom, Leesha had been able to avoid a similar fate, perhaps having grandparents that cared enough to be in her corner when needed had been her saving grace." And not as mind commentary. Just sayin', if we're inside his head shouldn't we be privy to his emotions rather than just the words swirling around in there?It's OK to have interesting ideas, a lot of people do, however having an interesting idea doesn't mean you have the ability or skill to translate it into an interesting story. And this was not an interesting story in the least, simply put, it just wasn't very creative beyond the idea of a bunch of super powered kids, the writing wasn't bad, just incredibly uninspired. I had a difficult time finishing it because I lost interest pretty quickly, I almost felt as if I were reading one of the dry Anthropology journal articles that I have to read throughout the semester and to be honest, I would rather have been reading one of those instead, at least they impart knowledge heretofore unknown to me. The only reason that I finished is because I can't not finish a book that I've started. So, I won't be reading the rest of this series as I'm pretty sure that it'll be more of the same and school doesn't start for another month so I have no intention of reading anything that reads like a journal article. The writer may want to invest in a creative writing course and then head back to the drawing board.