Review: Strange and inconsistent
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 14, 2013
I've only read the first chapter and I'm already wondering if I can get through the whole book. I'll update my review when I've read more, but meanwhile:The story opens with a fender bender as Liam, Faith's 15-year-old son, fails to brake in time and hits the car in front of them at a red light. Faith is in the passenger seat. Liam is "exhilarated" after the crash. I'm pretty sure that word doesn't mean whatever the writer thinks it means.Next, in one paragraph it says, "Slowly and painstakingly she extracted her arm from between his chest and the air bag", then in the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH it says, "The old Honda Element didn't come with modern protections like airbags, and she'd been upset about that when they'd bought the car, but maybe it was for the best." Seems like in the space of a single paragraph, the author forgot whether her characters' car was equipped with an airbag. This kind of glaring inconsistency is enough to throw a reader like me completely out of the story -- which, at this point, has barely even started!Then Faith gets out of the car: "The passenger door opened easily -- a lucky thing, thought Faith, since she didn't even want to guess at how much a totaled car might cost her and Mac." Two things: Does the writer understand what it means for a car to be 'totaled'? This kind of accident is considered a minor one and would never be enough to total a car. Secondly, the impact was to the front of the car, so no one would expect the car door to be damaged. It's strange for Faith to be thankful that the car door could open without difficulty.Finally, one might occasionally encounter a vicious animal, but the author must be the only living person to have come across a "viscous animal".