Review: Not Bad, Could Be Better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2014
I didn't want to tackle a 1400 page read, but the alternate slice seemed like a moderate compromise. I'll be completely honest; there are some major problems in the book, primarily the clear lack of a good editor, which, as an editor myself, is very hard to ignore. However, since I firmly believe that there is something redeeming in everything I read, as well as a strict rule not to put down a book until I am at least 200 pages into it, I trekked through. Once you see past the somewhat untrained writing style and focus on the plot itself, I can see a writer that is trying to find his voice and is shooting for the moon on his first go. That being said, I applaud his ambition to create such a sprawling, intense book, but I think that he should perhaps spend more time on the details of writing that make a book attractive enough for an average reader to get through. He is clearly a character-driven author, but a book, particularly one that is length and depth, needs to have a foundation of basic grammar, coherence, and narrative flow. I think that Crawford has talent, but needs time to express it properly.