Review: Too many writing errors
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
I'm about 2/3 of the way through this, and the writing style and errors are driving me so crazy that I'm not sure that I'll finish it, even though I think that the story itself is quite good. I was going to suggest to this author that she should have had an editor run their eyes over this book before she published - but then I see that she had one! I can honestly hardly believe it! Unless I'm mistaken an editor should point out to an author when they're 'Telling, not Showing', something of which this author lapses into over and over again. A lot of the time it reads like a letter. They should know when 'who' or 'which' should be used instead of 'that' (of which there are in-numerous examples. In fact, I don't think 'who' or 'which' were ever used when describing someone or something.) A half decent editor should also know the importance of not using the same descriptors over and over again. And just not to use the same word twice too close together in one paragraph if there's any way around it. For example; 'Immediately, the intoxicating scent of vanilla and cherries permeated his nose as her signature scent assailed his nose.' There are plenty examples like that so far, and just having someone else read it over should have helped to weed them all out. It's heavily over-written and the writer couldn't resist explaining things in too much detail, then explaining them again later in the story just in case we forgot. And again, and again, and again. If the age of a character is important enough to be written in, then they should stay that age throughout the story unless years pass. One key character started out at 33, then later was described again (in case we missed it the first time) as 30. The name of one character was confused with another at one point, making me read the sentence a few times wondering whether a small child was actuallly  driving a truck, or if we'd suddenly entered his imagination. The dialogue is so incredibly wooden that after a while I was laughing out loud. People just don't speak without contractions unless English isn't their first language. And by the way, the band is known by most of the world as The Beatles', not the Beetles. Who read this before it went to print?! After seeing all of the very positive reviews posted here, I finally understand that plenty of people are either oblivious to the quality of the writing, or just don't care as long as the story holds their imagination. This author seems to have some good story ideas, and the dedication to complete a whole book, but I'd love to suggest she take a creative writing class (you'll be glad you did, just to learn the simple things I've pointed out above) and find someone who does more than a spell-check on the work. This could have been soooo much better! The story is good!I'd originally given this 3 stars, but the further in I went, the worse the writing became. I'm about to delete it.