Review: Christina, the junior Wonder Woman
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2011
Note: This review was originally published on Red Adept Reviews on March 8, 2011.Overall:  3 starsPlot/Storyline:  3 starsChristina was like a junior Wonder Woman - she skydived, scuba dived, and flew airplanes like an experienced pilot after only a few hours of instruction. If the girls were a little younger, and if the more violent scenes were rewritten or deleted, the story would be appropriate - perhaps even inspirational - for younger teenagers, but the story just wasn't believable enough for me.The first third of the book, which followed the three girls from age eleven through high school, wasn't that interesting and served little purpose. There were dead ends such as the chapter where Jessica's abusive stepfather Roy beat her mom senseless, broke down Jessica's bedroom door, and tried to rape her. Jessica had telephoned Christina to help her, so Christina rushed over and stopped Roy by threatening him with her shotgun. But there was no follow-up, no calling the police, no mention of the stepfather after that. And there was very little mention of any of the girls' parents, it's almost as if they raised themselves.About halfway through the story, the action picked up and the story got more interesting when the three girls entered college. Christina started flying lessons, Heather became romantically involved with an older man, and Jessica studied old Spanish archives to locate sunken treasure. The three girls were now living their dreams. During a summer break, they embarked on a trip to the Bahamas on a treasure-hunting expedition that ended in tragedy. And this is where it really got too unbelievable for me. Christina showed flying skills that only a veteran pilot would have, even though she had not even earned her pilot's license. Her instructor had told her that she was the best student he had ever taught, but it was too much of a reach to believe she could fly planes as expertly as she did in the story.The story had too many convenient coincidences (such as an uncharted island being right where you need it) and implausible events (such as Jessica pinpointing sunken Spanish treasure that had eluded professional treasure hunters for years).I do have to say that the scene where Christina sought revenge on the culprit responsible for the Bahamas disaster was quite satisfying, even if it was a bit improbable.Characters:  4 starsChristina, Heather, and Jessica were the main characters, and the author did a good job of developing them as flesh and blood people, even if their emotions didn't always seem realistic to me.Writing style:  3 starsThe author's writing style was generally good, but the emotions and the dialogues of the story's characters were not very realistic at times. After witnessing the sudden, violent death of a close friend or relative, most people would be devastated and in shock. These characters, however, got over tragedies quickly and moved on.If you're going to have your characters engage in specialized activities, an author should be familiar with those activities. There were some glaring errors in this regard. For example, while skydiving for the first time, Christina "pulled the ripcord and tossed it to the side." I've skydived, and you don't toss the ripcord away, for two reasons: (1) it could kill someone on the ground, and (2) ripcords are not cheap to replace. She also pulled the ripcord at 1,000 feet, which is well below the minimum altitude for opening your parachute. Trust me, you get yelled at for things like that and get banned from a drop zone.Later, when Christina was taking flying lessons, she goes up with her instructor in a "Citborea," an aerobatic aircraft. I think the author meant a Citabria.Editing:  2 starsThe book was in serious need of editing and proofreading. I found quite a few grammatical and punctuation errors, and misspellings were found every few pages. A few examples: "ought" for "aught," "ware" for "were," "ya'll" for "y'all," "brake" for "break," "waist" for "waste," "metamorphous" for "metamorphosis," "depravation" for "deprivation," "choral reef" for "coral reef," and so on.