Archive for March 8, 2014
Downgrade by Jacqueline Patricks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Disclaimer: I was gifted this short story for honest review.
First of all, I was rather disappointed that this was so short with no resolution. With all the CSI type shows out there this would only be the opening scene. Castle would have asked a lot more questions. But I suppose that the paramedic doesn’t get involved in the suicide/murder question. Their job is pronounce the victim or save the victim. So… in that aspect it was a realistic depiction.
Second, I don’t read bloody, smelly stories. Not if I can help it. To the author’s credit, she did an excellent job describing all the sensations one might feel, smell, taste, see, or hear in this kind of scene making it immediately accessible to the reader. That is what we are taught to do as writers. But in this case… TMI? I suppose if you are into these kinds of stories this would be perfect. For me… I think I will go get a breath of fresh air and dive into another sci-fi or fantasy.
Shadow of the Sun by Laura Kreitzer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Three stars means I liked this book. Was it a favorite? Sorry, no. It had a lot of interesting ideas that were unique, but the follow-through wasn’t there, unless, of course that comes in book two or three.
I liked that the main character was a well-educated lady with lots of smarts. At first, though, I didn’t much like her as she was snotty to her helper. Later that falls by the wayside as the character development reveals someone who does have a heart.
There was a lot of repetition of feelings and information. And it wasn’t long before this genius person, the strong person becomes the fainter, the whiner. And worst of all she becomes the boy-crazy teen. That was too bad as I wanted to like her.
Though fairly well-written, the Tablet/Fire version of this book was hard to read as the font was too light. Thank goodness I was able to read it on my Second Generation Kindle with text-to-speech. I did notice that my edition of the book is no longer available, but there is still a free version for Kindle at the moment. Maybe the font issue has been dealt with. Try it. Maybe you will like it better than I did.
