Review: Tangled strings...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 22, 2012
I'm giving this two stars since I managed to make it to the end.I picked this up free because the premise seemed interesting. I'm glad I didn't pay for it.Where to start? Overall, the writing is amateurish, without a hint of depth. They do this, they do that, they feel this, they feel that. And their faces, eyes, and mouths are in constant motion. Yes, I know he's smiling. He's ALWAYS smiling, or grinning, or smirking. The author never felt confident enough in the writing or dialogue to let the reader see the characters' expressions in our mind; every frown, smile, raised eyebrow, smirk, etc, is carefully documented.Add to this the most extensive collection of adverbs I think I've ever come across in a book. Every page is crammed with them. At one point I noticed the word "quickly" in four successive paragraphs. Suddenly, immediately, momentarily, happily, unexpectedly, hesitantly, impatiently, briefly. The list goes on and on. Unendingly.Characters rarely just say something, they giggle, tease, gasp, jab, hack, laugh, cackle, breath, squeak, squeal, sigh, snap, scoff, glower, glare, wink, croak... and all sorts of other unnecessary seasoning. It makes the whole thing unpalatable.When they speak, the dialogue is often so stilted it sounds as if these are students in a language class practicing their conversational skills, and failing. "When I was little, my Dad would take me to watch skilled individuals blow glass into different creations."  "...after escaping the riotous crowd in the lobby, I was cornered by a loathsome male..." "Life has unraveled so quickly I can barely wrap my mind around what's gone down."Some of the narrative sounds like it's badly translated: "Thankfully the turmoil had adjourned and I presumed it was due to people retiring for the night." "I had so much to do and an insufficient timetable in which to do it."And yes, I know these are teens, but they go from bestest buddies ever to not speaking to hugging to avoiding each other to crying on each other's shoulders to hurt to loyal to... well, you get the picture. The roller coaster of emotions gave me a sour stomach. The poor main character herself is either stunned, shocked, overwhelmed or on the verge of tears most of the time. That is when she's not giddy with joy. Or staunching the flow of blood from a head wound. Twice.Poor word choice often made this reader flinch. "...he accessed another button." Well, he pushed it. "I drudged off to my room." People "shutter" (should be shudder). Too much of that sort of thing.So why did I keep reading when all this assaulted my sensibilities? Well, since I found the premise interesting, I wanted to see what happened. So I drudged on through, and here's one of my biggest complaints: the reason the bad guys do the bad thing is NEVER EXPLAINED. There is no reason at all for the bad guys to do what they did, except so the good guys can be shocked and stunned some more and have to figure out a way to overcome that challenge. That's not a good enough reason. (And it's not like those bad guys show up in the next book, because it's revealed what happens to them at the end of this one.)Another problem for me is that here are all these people crammed into the moon colony and they all think Earth is uninhabited and they'll die if they go down there... LITTLE SPOILER HERE... and yet when they get there, everything's pretty much normal. Towns, shops, money, cars, electricity, heated pools with neon lighting, digital picture frames, programmable stoves that help you cook. Tons of people showing no ill effects from the virus they've been working 14 years on a vaccine for, yet the moon people can't live without a vaccine... It just didn't hold together for me.There are better books with good plots and good writing out there. Don't waste your time with this one.