Review: The Spirit Losers (Spoilers)
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 07 11, 2014
This book is riddled with cliches. The book sounded interesting, with government agents tracking down "spirit shifters" and a young scientist, Autumn, working for them. But if there wasn't a cliche in every chapter, then this book would've been scraping by decent.The first cliche: the Spirit Shifters, or, the Spirit Losers. Of course Blake Wolfcollar is the shifter with the cool abilities, because his "spirit guardian" found him at birth.Also, while this is a little off-topic, there have been many takes on werewolves/shifters in the past, but in the first few chapters it's like the author is trying too hard to show that these shifters are a different cut from the clothe. Even though that's not much of a cliche, it is another reason why this book fails miserably at a topic that most authors can handle through deftly.Second cliche: The "heroine", Autumn Anderson, is the "Ideal Woman". She's blonde, tall, and skinny. Real women aren't like that without extensive work on their part. Or, real women CAN be like that, but be extremely shallow and materialistic. Also, Autumn is incredibly intelligent...with her perfect looks, intellect, and fine personality, she's a woman that is hard to find in this world today. If I could re-name Autumn, her name would be Mary-Sue. She's just a completely unrealistic character.Third cliche: the Government is the enemy. While I'm no servant for The Man, I have to say, the government always ends up being the enemy at some point, and it's a boring twist that had been overused these days. It looked cool in Resident Evil, but that's the one occasion that this "government is the enemy" scheme was pulled off flawless.Fourth cliche: The "Love-Hate Relationship Cliche". Yes, this has appeared in books so much that I have a name for this cliche. It's when the woman "hates" the man (calls him infuriating, annoying, etc) and the man curses the woman for "wearing down his defenses" and getting under his skin. The Love-Hate Relationship Cliche (or, the LHRC) had gotten old after Pride and Prejudice was published. And for the record, Mr. Darcy is a pretentious douche.Fifth cliche: The mother is dead. I know, this cliche is minor...but pick any book and you'll find the dear protagonist's mother died when they were younger. Every other fiction book you see, the mother is dead. Sometimes even the father dies, if we're going to shake it up a bit.Sixth cliche: The guy is a beefcake with good looks. Yep. There is nothing special (besides being a, what, "spirit shifter") about Blake Wolfcollar. He's your average love interest: tall, tan, dark looks, overly muscular, and the strong and silent type. How many men, dare I ask, are like this in real life? Again, if anyone really looked that good, they'd be shallow and heartless. I dub Blake Wolfcollar "Gary Stue", because he is your average Mr. Perfect.There are many other cliches, but to save time I'll stop here.Another thing I hate about this book (besides all the cliches) is the author's writing style. It's truly like she's trying to hard to prove that her writing is original and unique. It's not. This story has so many cliches I'm not sure how it was even published. I couldn't even finish the book. I had a cliche overload at 74% and could not continue.The characters are too perfect, their romance is nothing special or interesting, the plot is bland, the character details are mediocre, and this story is nothing new.Hate to break it to you, Marissa Farrar, but you're nothing special.