Review: Not fabulous
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 22, 2012
I have read reviews for this book on this site and another one, and I'm going to have to disagree with all of them. I have a few problems with this book...1. This is a murder mystery/horror type story (I was told horror), but the title gives away any of the mystery, and it wasn't scary or even mildly unsettling.2. I do not like the main character. I realise this is set back in a time when being racist was 'normal', but the way this book starts made me hate the guy immediately and I never got over that. I'm white and I was offended; who knows how I'd feel if I was Chinese.3. This book was absolutely riddled with typos. I've since been forwarded a 'revised' edition with corrections made, but I'm not going to read it again just to check and see if they've all been fixed.4. Honestly, I would rather have been given this book to critique so that I could have helped the author make some improvements. I would have been happy to help. It reads like a first draft to me, not a polished piece of fiction. But, it was given to me as a published work, so there's nothing I can do about that.I'm always happy to support writers, to critique their work and have them critique mine. Writing is hard. Reading not-great writing is harder. I don't know how long this author has been writing, I don't know where on his journey he is, but even though I did not enjoy this story at all I do wish him the very best for the future and hope to see his work improve with practice and hard work.