Review: Great Concept; Ok Execution
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
Due to the number of 5 star reviews I was excited to check out this book.I love the idea of a travelogue that follows a monster hunter around the globe. The potential for an interesting plot and exciting action is huge due to the fact that the author has not limited this book to just one type of monster. Sadly, I found the novel did not live up to its excellent premise. It's not a bad book by any means, but it failed to really "wow" me and I will attempt to explain why.-The writing is serviceable, but lacks flourish. Good writing pulls me into a mental world where pictures move through my head, while with this book I was always consciously aware that I was reading. To put it simply, I found some of the writing to be a little too straight forward to the point that it was occasionally a little bland. More emotion (and perhaps some inner-turmoil) would have made the story more engaging.-I found it hard to connect with the protagonist. I found him distant. Once in awhile he would refer to relationship trouble with his mom (or even his dad's girlfriend) and we would get a glimpse that he is a real human, but other times I found his choices hard to understand and I just couldn't put myself in his head.-I was hoping for a greater variety of monsters. Too many of the monsters were either zombies or vampires. (The best chapter of this book details a hunt for an African river monster. It had an interesting monster in an exciting local and best of all the protagonist has a moral dilemma as to whether killing the monster is right. If the whole book had been more like that chapter I would have rated this 4 or 4.5 stars.)Overall a decent story that fans of vampire and zombie hunting would probably enjoy. Casual readers not especially interested in the concept of monster hunting should probably look elsewhere.