Review: So-So
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 29, 2013
It started out pretty good. I liked the cemetery bit and the characters felt realistic to me. However, after the Lockdown portion of it the book seriously lagged. It also took quite a big jump in the timeline from out of nowhere and even then I wasn't sure how much time had passed. Days? Weeks?The narration switch to the unnamed spirit and the other entity's conversations went nowhere really. The book could have easily been written without them (except for maybe the end bit but that really needed no set-up and would have been fine without the previous excerpts).Speaking of the ending I thought the twist was nicely (and believably) done but there were so many plot threads left dangling that I was promised would be made clear IF I buy the other books in the series. Personally I don't like that. I have no problems with serial stories. What I do have a problem with are books that just stop, with the author pretty much saying "I'm going to force you to buy my books to learn what happened in the last one". A series should have common threads, characters and, yes, surprises. But each story should zlso be self-contained with things mostly resolved so the reader doesn't feel manipulated into spending more and more money because the stories are left unfinished. It's a growing trend I'm starting to see in books and I don't think it's fair to the readers.One other issue I had was the formatting. Sometimes the quotations beginning each chapter started so abruptly and without any change in font or script or unitalicized so a few times I thought I was reading the actual story until I got to the end of the quote. The spirit sections could have been separated a bit better, also.All in all I can't say I would recommend it but it wasn't so terrible that I would actively warn people away from it either.