I don't think I've ever read such a strange feeling of non-urgency in a crime thriller novel. I think the past tense narrative style did not do the pacing justice. There's a crime happening and everyone just felt like they were mired in, well, the past. And inane details about where to eat in this small town.
Yeah. the tense switches in this book were not to my liking. It made the story feel awkward when it wasn't drowning out any sense of tension. The characters just... started to not feel real at all. Very quickly. The officer, the writing therapist, our MC. There was something off about the writing. I didn't skim this First Look, but I also feel like I didn't retain much of an impression of any of these characters other than they just didn't feel like real people to me.
Whoa and then the time jumps? It was extremely difficult to even want to get into this story. We open with the current action (a crime happening with no sense of urgency), then cut to "10 weeks earlier" (strange writing therapy session ok), THEN cut to "2001" which OK don't really know or care how far back that is.
And finally this excerpt just made me uncomfortable. Lines about being scared of a "Middle Eastern" man's backpack left unattended at the gym and this from the MC's best and only friend: "No one’s prepared you for the number of folk dance shows you’re going to have to sit through living here. The good news is not all of the singing sounds like a lamb being sacrificed." Just, yeah, not into characters being casually/horribly racist and the narrative not acknowledging it even or calling it out or anything. It just is, and in 21 pages, that's a pretty bad impression of how the rest of this book would go.
Thanks for the First Look, but I'll be giving this book a hard pass.
Yeah. the tense switches in this book were not to my liking. It made the story feel awkward when it wasn't drowning out any sense of tension. The characters just... started to not feel real at all. Very quickly. The officer, the writing therapist, our MC. There was something off about the writing. I didn't skim this First Look, but I also feel like I didn't retain much of an impression of any of these characters other than they just didn't feel like real people to me.
Whoa and then the time jumps? It was extremely difficult to even want to get into this story. We open with the current action (a crime happening with no sense of urgency), then cut to "10 weeks earlier" (strange writing therapy session ok), THEN cut to "2001" which OK don't really know or care how far back that is.
And finally this excerpt just made me uncomfortable. Lines about being scared of a "Middle Eastern" man's backpack left unattended at the gym and this from the MC's best and only friend: "No one’s prepared you for the number of folk dance shows you’re going to have to sit through living here. The good news is not all of the singing sounds like a lamb being sacrificed." Just, yeah, not into characters being casually/horribly racist and the narrative not acknowledging it even or calling it out or anything. It just is, and in 21 pages, that's a pretty bad impression of how the rest of this book would go.
Thanks for the First Look, but I'll be giving this book a hard pass.