Review: Too many characters to keep straight
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2014
Reading this type of novel was very different for me.  It was short (i.e. you can read it all in one day) and instead of things getting resolved, it ended with them up in the air.  It definitely reminded me more of a TV show then a novel.  Actually it reminded me a lot of a TV show that we started watching one year called Reunion.  It was about students coming back to attend their 20th high school reunion.  In the show, each episode was about a different student and told us their story from high school on up to the reunion night and, of course, all their storylines intersected.  Do you know what happened to that show?  After airing about 4 episodes, the show got cancelled.  It was an interesting idea but it didn’t pan out because it was just to hard to keep up with all of the characters.I felt the same way about this book.  It is an intriguing story idea, but it’s just too hard to keep up with all the characters.  There are a lot of characters introduced all at once and they all seem to be interconnected, like a soap opera.  Also like a soap opera, you just see a snippet of their lives each time and you are left with a lot of questions.  I have only read the first episode of the book (available for free on Amazon) and that episode just gives us a little bit of information about each character, but I felt like I should be taking notes about who has a history with whom.  I almost wish the author had provided a little cheat sheet at the beginning that we could refer to when we got confused.I also felt like the main character, Quinn, the one who brings everyone together, is very unbelievable.  He’s like a saint, the only person in the little town that everyone likes.  I had a few great high school teachers but none who were available to everyone at all times and liked by everyone at all times.  Yet that is how the author portrays Quinn in this first episode.Currently episodes 1-5 have been released.  The first two episodes are free right now on Amazon.  After that the price per episode is $1.99 with a new episode released every Friday through April 11.  If you bought all 13 episodes (with the first 2 being free), you would spend $21.89 on the season.  I might spend that amount on a hardback book that just came out, but it seems like a lot to spend on an e-book.  However, if you compare the episode novel to a TV show, an individual episode of a TV show sells for $1.99 on Amazon and a whole season sells for $21.99.  So in that sense, the cost is comparable.This type of novel does not appeal to me.  I would read each new installment in a day then, by the time the next one comes out, forget what had happened in the last episode.  It would also drive me nuts to be left hanging each time.  However, if you are a fan of soap operas and like the interweaving of lives and having a cliffhanger each week, then this may be the novel for you.