Review: See Spot Run...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 3, 2011
The reason I did not go so far as to lower this review to one star is simply because someone obviously took the time to edit it - not extremely well, mind you, since there were grammatical errors and misplaced question marks aplenty. That and because I can't say that the book was horrible... it wasn't.. but neither is dry toast. Get my point?However, this book lacked every single solitary thing that I look for in a good piece of fiction. If I were to make an accurate analogy for this, I would say this is the connect-the-dots coloring book of the paranormal fiction world. It's black & white, you know where it's going, there's no depth or imagination... you're pretty much being led by the hand through the whole thing just waiting for it to be over with. And when you're finished, you look back and think, "Well, that was pointless."If this author has taken any writers workshops, I'd be surprised. This writing is remedial at best, and a boring waste of time to boot. I never really thought that I could encounter a vampire novel that was this prosaic. It seems that her entire repertoire of vocabulary is stuck in grade school mode, repetitively using words like "dark", "hunger", "fear" and "beautiful" as though those are the only possible means of description. The emotion in this book seems forced, awkward, and cliché all at once, while the storyline leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination since the author spells everything out to the reader as though we're first graders asking where babies come from. I'm actually a little offended that the author doesn't give readers more credit.Because of the fact that the characters lack any and all dimension, the relationships between them are illogical and ridiculously shallow. Calling this a "romance" is like calling Velveeta "cheese".My recommendation to readers:If you're looking for something to waste your time with... where you don't want to get attached to characters, plot, or anything else.If you have poor vocabulary yourself, and don't want to have to look up any words.If you don't need originality in any shape or form...Then, yes, of course, read this book.My recommendation for the author:I've seen your website and all of your various offerings, so here's my suggestion - spend less time on blogs, newsletters, YouTube trailers, interviews.. even your nice little website. This is all time that could be spent developing your writing skills. This may sound a bit harsh, but honestly, you can't take this stuff back! With most readers, first impressions are all you have... so is it really worth publishing something so unbelievably trite just to get your name out there? To sell a few books?Writing is an art form. Much like playing instruments, photography, painting, singing...etc., writing can be done by almost anyone. But that doesn't mean that it's good. "Good" takes work... and "great", well, that takes a lot of work. And I'm of the opinion that you need a heck of a lot more work until this gets anywhere even remotely close to "good".