Review: Had potential...Needs more work
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 1, 2013
I got this book for free in exchange for my honest review. First let me say that the book had a lot of promise. I liked the ideas or perspective the the author took in terms of the overall story plot lines. However the author missed a great opportunity in making these stories great and memorable. This would be good a first draft, but not a great finished piece of fiction.The book is broken into 4 main stories, however, it would have been much better if the author had decided to devote more time to each story and perhaps published them as separate short-story books. This would have been much better instead of leaving it to the reader to do all the work piecing the story together. And yes, while I understand that short stories don't leave the author much room for character and plot development, I couldn't understand what was the goal or reasoning behind the characters actions or thoughts.The book was also in need of a good editor. There were typos, and many run-on sentences. The dialogue didn't come across as natural, but forced, which made the characters hard to relate to. In addition, in the last story, The Way Home, the story switches from 3rd person POV to First person POV from one chapter to the next which is very distracting for a short story or any novel for that matter.There were also times when the short stories read like excerpts, and I felt like I was missing something that would have painted a better picture for me. For example, in the first short story, Desert Song, I'm still trying to figure out what is up with this whole  skeleton thing. I understand the phrase "skeleton in the closet", but I am lost how as to why this skeleton is haunting this girl. Is it a curse, voodoo, a metamorphosis of a demon into a physical entity? Also why was she afraid to go on this road trip? Why did the guy have to ask if he had to sleep in the truck? Who is Ada, her mom? The guy recommends a trip to Paris when they are portrayed as not so well-off. But the reason they can't go is that she is afraid of flying. What am I missing?