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The Eye of the Storm
Rory's dad is going to marry Ashton's mum and that means Rory has to try to get on with Ashton. Rory's tough image - into bikes and football - belies his secret he is terrified of the dark and he needs to prevent Ashton finding out.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
February 5, 2015
This book had absolutely no idea what it wanted to be. The tone was scattered everywhere and I didn't know if I was reading an over-the-top children's drama or a supernatural thriller. Whatever the case, the protagonist is so unlikable that the story within had no chance whatsoever to be good.
Who wants to read a book where a moody 12 year old boy who is conflicted with unnecessary anger, jealousy, and confusion is the main focus of the story? The inner mind monologues became tiresome and the main character felt like an odd rendering of the author's mind. The character wasn't fleshed out. He seemed like those annoying cliches that writers strive to not write about. This wasn't a boy on the brink of being a teenager. It was a writer who was pretending to be a 12 year old.
Our cast of characters is an awkward and forgettable bunch. We have the one dimensional single dad, his 12 and 9 year old sons, their soon to be step-brother (he was actually the only slightly good thing about the book but is very limited), and two old ladies who I don't even know why they were even in the book. I understand that the nearly 100 year old granny and her daughter were the link between the ominous feelings we were meant to emulate, but really... they served no point by the end.
Dialogue was atrocious. A coincidence occurred when I happened to read an article the same day I started this book, focusing on how dialogue needs to show but not tell and how fluent dialogue will flow with the story. Here we have forced and blase one liners, spine-tingling English "slang". Tea, crumpets, cricket and cheers never felt more laughable. I've read plenty of books and even seen English movies, but nothing comes close to this. It felt like an American author writing down something that resembled what an Englishman would say. Accents tend to be clear in my mind when reading, but this time around the characters sounded like any other Utahn attempting to impersonating someone from Europe. What?
Scenes never really felt suspenseful. I never cared for what would happen next. Reading just kind of felt like a chore this time around. Any moment that seemed to serve a purpose in the endgame, turned out to be pointless by the last page. Nothing is explained and none of it made sense. Was there some kind of symbolism or foreshadowing that I fell asleep through?
It seems that I didn't learn my lesson from the first time around, when I took a chance on a cheap paperback. Hopefully my lesson is learned after this dreadfully dark experience. Probably not...
2/5 - Bad - Not Recommended
Who wants to read a book where a moody 12 year old boy who is conflicted with unnecessary anger, jealousy, and confusion is the main focus of the story? The inner mind monologues became tiresome and the main character felt like an odd rendering of the author's mind. The character wasn't fleshed out. He seemed like those annoying cliches that writers strive to not write about. This wasn't a boy on the brink of being a teenager. It was a writer who was pretending to be a 12 year old.
Our cast of characters is an awkward and forgettable bunch. We have the one dimensional single dad, his 12 and 9 year old sons, their soon to be step-brother (he was actually the only slightly good thing about the book but is very limited), and two old ladies who I don't even know why they were even in the book. I understand that the nearly 100 year old granny and her daughter were the link between the ominous feelings we were meant to emulate, but really... they served no point by the end.
Dialogue was atrocious. A coincidence occurred when I happened to read an article the same day I started this book, focusing on how dialogue needs to show but not tell and how fluent dialogue will flow with the story. Here we have forced and blase one liners, spine-tingling English "slang". Tea, crumpets, cricket and cheers never felt more laughable. I've read plenty of books and even seen English movies, but nothing comes close to this. It felt like an American author writing down something that resembled what an Englishman would say. Accents tend to be clear in my mind when reading, but this time around the characters sounded like any other Utahn attempting to impersonating someone from Europe. What?
Scenes never really felt suspenseful. I never cared for what would happen next. Reading just kind of felt like a chore this time around. Any moment that seemed to serve a purpose in the endgame, turned out to be pointless by the last page. Nothing is explained and none of it made sense. Was there some kind of symbolism or foreshadowing that I fell asleep through?
It seems that I didn't learn my lesson from the first time around, when I took a chance on a cheap paperback. Hopefully my lesson is learned after this dreadfully dark experience. Probably not...
2/5 - Bad - Not Recommended
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review