Review: Twilight on the Amber Cliffs is STILL a better love story than ....
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 8, 2012
Twilight on the Amber Cliffs is an excellent little coming of age story. It has just enough hints of what it means to form a lasting bond that everyone - from YA readers (who might be a tad surprised by the brief presence of more adult language in the book, though there was nothing I would have censored in the novel) all the way to adults - can identify with.  It has memorable characters - especially those of Tidus and Hope, who almost eclipse the main character, Brandon, with their gentleness, love-ability, and, ESPECIALLY in Tidus' case, the deep-rooted extent of his true nobility.  They are satisfyingly fleshed out more so in their dialogue than in the prose, which needs more vivid description put to it, instead of the current instructive tone the book carries, but that's a personal preference; other readers, especially in the coming-of-age genre, might find it perfectly acceptable.What I think I liked most of all about the book was the view of the West. I know little about the Western states, but have always found the whispers of the culture there to be interesting, and the author obviously knows quite a bit about how to style his characters in that setting. I enjoyed the instruction on the workings of a rodeo and the various settings described in the story.  The author is obviously more comfortable out there as well, in place of a big city like New York; his writing flowed much better once his main characters were 'back home', so to speak.Like other readers have commented, sometimes the flicking back and forth from past to present could be choppy and somewhat disjointed, though they were an interesting glimpse into the world of Brandon's childhood and (thankfully) clearly noted by the years in which the events happened.There are some definite spelling and grammar errors that a good combing through by two separate sets of eyes would easily eliminate; though they didn't take away from the overall feel of the story for me, there were definitely cases where I had to stop and think what the writer was attempting to say. "Evidentially" in place of "eventually" was one of them, and there were a few grammatical mistakes that needed fixing as well.  All in all, however, it was a good read, and I want to thank the author for putting it out there for us to find. Some tightening of his style, a good editor roped in for a read, and he'll have a fine gem of a book definitely worth five stars.