Review: Too much profanity that adds nothing to the story
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 22, 2013
Ava’s (expletive) brother has been replaced by a (expletive) doppelganger, and it is up to her to determine what the (expletive) is going on. It took me some time to catch on that Ava was a woman, considering she is not described in the opening and the narrator cusses like a sailor. Maybe I missed a line early on, but I thought she was a man for about the first 30 pages.There is an excessive amount of profanity in this book. It adds no value, neither drawing your attention or emphasizing a point. It is simply dropped casually at every turn to the point of being obnoxious. I guess there are people out there who drop such language constantly, but it doesn’t tend to make a person seem intelligent. I feel like it was far too much and detracted from Ava’s character. It certainly didn’t make me want to like or sympathize with her. I just wanted to wash her mouth out with soap. You know that feeling you get when you see someone has painted a dirty word on a wall? When you think “gee, congratulations on being able to spell a four letter word”, and you wonder if the person who scribbled it was over the age of 12? That’s the feeling I had. All the profanity detracts from the story and does not give me the sense of a well written novel.Using skinwalkers as the villains for the story was a good idea. I enjoy Native American legends, and I’ve read quite a bit about these creatures. This book features them prominently and adds its own spin on an old tale.If you can look past all the unnecessary foul language that affronts you on every page, you will see some well written verses. The battle scenes are exciting and well done, and some of the descriptions give you a clear picture of what’s going on. It’s a shame to have the narrative so polluted. I don’t mind adult language when it fits in, but this story could use a real editor to look it over and say where it’s appropriate and where it’s just filler. No need to get your word count up by adding (expletive) and (expletive times ten) every other sentence.This had more of a paranormal feel to it than science fiction. I can’t say exactly what’s missing, but it definitely has an urban fantasy vibe to it. Fans of both genres may find something interesting here. Fans of sci-fi who prefer other worldly adventures and space travel might be a bit disappointed. Unfortunately, I am the latter, and I never truly got into this book. I failed to relate to any character, and I didn’t find myself caring about what happened to them.I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.