Review: Interesting and makes me curious for Michael's next book!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 21, 2014
Ok, this has a bit of YES! and then a bit of NO! to it. The first chapter had my mouth agape and my mind although still reeling, wanting more. It was a horrific start but with that kind of writing and that type of intensity I knew I was in for a great read.And then we meet some of the characters. Sadly I did not fall in love with them. Blake is THE worst. I mean every other word out of this guy's mouth is a curse word. I'm not Mary Poppins or anything, hell I was even in the military and I think this guy could teach sailors how to talk. And all the talk of getting the P... I mean, I get he's a guy and he's in college, but come on! He drove me crazy and sadly started taking away from the story instead of adding to it.As for Alex, I did really get a feeling for him. The only thing that threw me off he actually addresses later on in the book, and that's the fact that he keeps calling Leila, Dude. Again, like Blake with his insistence on using the F and P words (yes, I say them just not on my blog or in reviews LOL), the word dude came out of Alex's mouth so many times that I wanted to kill him, or put the book down... neither is a good sign for a character, really. But I like Alex enough to try desperately to overlook the dude and I was sort of able to as the story progresses.Leila is actually the most interesting character for me. She has no idea why she is stuck and although her faith wanes, it never dies. She shows a huge amount of resistance and bravery in horrible circumstances. Sadly I just didn't get into the plot until nearly at the 40% mark, and I think I blame Blake for this! But that's way too long to sit there wondering if the book is going to get better or if the characters are going to grow a brain. It does get good and I wanted to know what was going to happen but without that first mesmerizing chapter I may have put this down at the 25% mark.The redeeming qualities are that some of the characters, like Leila, have a brain and actually act like it. And the plot is really interesting. I did want to know why she was lingering around and I hoped that Michael Haley wasn't going to leave his audience hanging, and he doesn't. Although the answers are still a bit existential and out there a bit and didn't offer anything really concrete but it was still really interesting.This is Michael Haley's debut book and even with the ups and the downs I can see that I think I will enjoy what he writes. Just hopefully not another book with another cliche guy!Received from author for an honest review.