Review: Valor has many obvious flaws
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 08 12, 2012
Valor wasn't a very long book, but it felt long. I think that's because the action was slow to begin with and didn't really start until a third of the way through the story. Plus the style in which the story was told made it seem longer, which I'll explain in the next paragraph.The one thing I dislike about stories in first person is that more often than not, the MC comes across as flat with no personality and `tells' the story instead of describing the scenes with emotion and sensation. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in Valor.  I never feel drawn to MacKenzie because it's like I'm reading a technical paper when she describes everything, including describing any action taking place. It's always `I did this, and then this happened.' One example is when MacKenzie is in the gargage near the beginning of the story and another one is part of the big scene at the end.I realize many people don't care if a story is written in a telling, monotone manner. But bland, flat writing is a big peeve of mine. If it happens once and awhile in a story, it's not so bad, but throughout the whole book, and I mean the whole book, not just sometimes, is really unacceptable, I don't care how good the plot idea is. Show; don't tell us readers the story.Continuing on with the lack of descriptors, there's no `emotion' whenever the author has MacKenzie go into internal dialogue,and boy is there an overwhelmingly large amount of internal chatter going on with MacKenzie. It felt like a teenager talking or texting non-stop. It's not just because MacKenzie is emotionally 'detached,' which is OK for a character, it's the way the author does not convey feelings or sensations through MacKenzie's thoughts and speech. The author again tells instead of shows us MacKenzie, that is not a 'detached' character, that is poor writing. The dialogue scenes are few and the action scenes aren't described in a way that makes me feel a part of them.I can't really tell you much about MacKenzie other than she's got red hair, the gargoyles consider her a witch, and that she does the usual teenage girl angst over Valor. `Does he like me? Or doesn't he?' MacKenzie's angst moments came across as artificial; it was as if I could see the author thinking where more drama could be inserted into the plot. The whole situation between MacKenzie and Valor was a typical romance formula.The gargoyles on the other hand were a great idea. I loved their background history and the harpies, also the names of all the gargoyles. It was fun to read about the pack's reactions and adaptation to their new world.The author had a bad habit of jumping days and time in the story without notice so it sometimes took a while to figure out where the story is in the timeline. The story could jump forward or back without any warning ignoring the use of any chapter or paragraph separators to help the reader figure out where we are in time. At one point the story switched forward in time, then backward, then back to the present and then into the future all within four paragraphs. It was very confusing.The formatting had some problems. Dialogue between two different people often ran together in one paragraph, making it difficult to tell who was talking. Pages where not completely filled with text, sometimes only filled with a couple short paragraphs leaving the rest of the page empty, but continuing on the following page.The author had a good idea when creating Valor, with the history of the gargoyles and the names. I think this story would have been much more interesting if the author had concentrated on developing the plot about the gargoyles, the harpies and possibly the nefarious activities of her step-father. Instead the author focused on the teenage angst of MacKenzie and this story turned into a simplistic teenage romance when it could have been so much more. If you're interested in teenage romance stories and don't care how simple the writing is, than you'll probably like Valor. The story unfortunately, doesn't have much action and the writing style is too flat and dull. This was the most disappointing, and glaring flaw with this story, the telling rather than the showing.The flaws outweigh the good idea the author had about gargoyles and harpies. I can only give Valor 2 stars