Review: Amusing, fast read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 5, 2011
I liked the overall idea of the story, and I liked the ghost's confusion and the way she haunted her boyfriend (who had killed her). A lot of the characters' voices were a bit too similar, though, and their speech didn't really distinguish them much (although one of the gay characters spoke with some stereotypically "gay" expressions). There were also more than a couple of plot holes (I won't spoil it for other readers by saying what they were), but aside from that, the story was a fun read, and it flowed well.There was quite a bit of vulgar language, too -- a bit over-the-top to me -- and it became a bit tedious, particularly in the first third of the story. There was almost too much for it to even be offensive -- it was just tedious to read. A sprinkling of the f-word and other similar words would have been sufficient to give flavor to the characters' speech and a sense of what sort of people they were without having to overdo it. It helped to give a slightly amateurish feel to the writing.Aside from that, I read the entire thing and laughed several times, and I think that Naomi Kramer has a lot of potential as a writer. I might read some of her future books.Oh, one other odd(ish) thing -- the setting was not at all clear at the beginning of the story. At first I thought it was in the U.K., but then a lot of it sounded like it was in the U.S. Finally after I had decided it was in the U.K. because of the abundance of British vernacular, someone paid for a cab in dollars, so it clearly wasn't set in the U.K.! The cab fare finally made me think it had to be in Australia.