Review: Promising, But Hard to Read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 23, 2012
While this genre of Shifter/Fantasy is becoming deluged with new series, I still enjoy it. Often I wander upon a series that I commit to reading and then the first book gives me pause to reconsider.This is one such book. Aside from the major editing and obvious grammar errors that Ms. Good missed (I itched to pull out my editing tablet to correct this manuscript), the book was choppy and difficult to read at times. The writer seemed content to tell the story as if explaining it to herself in long railleries. The book was full of pages' long paragraphs that were sometimes tedious and often I had to lay the book aside to clear my head to continue reading.At some point three things became clear to me. First, the issue of the lead female's sense of self was clearly defined by males in general and could only redefined by her mates rather than a more graduated process of self-discover with her mates support. Second, the author was not going to leave much for me in terms of using my imagination when reading as she describes in painful detail every thought and focuses on even the most mundane in trying to set the scene and I often lost focus of the point of the original discussion the character began talking about or trying to make. Finally, it was apparent that the author was writing much as a 20-something would speak with weak wording like "and stuff." This type of writing to a seasoned reader is difficult to read and often bogs the reader down and slows the story. The characters were weakly developed as result of this type of speak-writing and their relationships seemed too surrealistic rather than plausible (one thing most in the genre strive to achieve)as a result as well.I would recommend the author try a bit of "bare-boning" (check out the Sarah Plain and Tall Patricia MacLachlan Author discussions - I know this is not a Newberry section but the technique is still valid) to try and minimize the excessive descriptions and internal dialog that takes place with each character and allow the relationships to develop a bit more slowly rather than seeming to jump around constantly and indecisively. I saw the characters as flightly and kept getting the impressions of "one jump in the sack toward forever".Now, aside from the frustration I enjoyed the direction this story line seems to be taking. I will read the next in the series to see if the author's writing style improves as I think the story line is a redeeming one. For the price, if you can wade through the long paragraphs, lengthy internal dialog, and rather sophomoric attitudes and attention span of the characters it will be worth the minimal cost. I don't usually give such harsh review, but I think this author has potential.4 out of 10 Bookends