Review: A light-hearted, enjoyable and fun read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Read it with your tongue firmly in your cheek
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 22, 2014
Jared Floodman’s little tale is truly delight to read and believe me the wonderfully understated blurb for this fails to do it justice. The first person narrative, the stripped down prose and day to day accounts and observation gives the impression we are almost reading someone’s diary. Overall, despite the odd typo here and there I found this well written. The one criticism I do have is that the author often fails to use contractions and we have language items like “would have,” “had not,” and “was not” throughout which sometimes upset the flow of the text.About a third of the way into the story suddenly turns delightfully surreal and bizarre. I’m determined to not say too much about the nature of this because I am loathe to spoil the surprise, one which I enjoyed immensely, but suddenly we’re in a different genre altogether as the tale turns supernatural, the eponymous pomander playing a central role in the subsequent proceedings. The author treats us to some delightful, whacky turns of phrases from this point on. My favourites were “dried apple from hell” and “The world was not ready for the harsh realties of witchcraft and pomanders.”The story’s ending is a little clichéd yet it should be pointed out it would be incomplete without this and to his credit the author does manage to add a little twist into the predictability.The Pomanders reminded me a little of two classics, Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers and Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters yet has the feel of something from Amazing Tales.A light, enjoyable and fun read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I would recommend this one to everyone.