lundi 17 novembre 2014

Wolf Moon: A Grazi Kelly Novel, by C.D. Gorri- Review

*I received a free copy of this book from the author to do an honest review*

There is a lot of different aspects from this book that I would like to approach.
First off, the storyline.
On that, I'd definetly give good points to the author, for succeeding on making a werewolf book original. That's not an easy thing to do, with all the books out there about that particular subject. However, the way C.D Gorri approached the mythical creature was definetly original and interresting, without falling into the completly absurd like, say, by making a vampire shine in the sun. She did not stray to far from the actual "definition" of werewolves, but she did bring new aspects and made the whole thing original and different. I won't go into details as I don't want to ruin it for you.
On a more negative aspect, there is a love triangle in this book, which most of us, young adults reader, are tired of seeing, as it has been done and done again. It is not that the love triangle here is not interresting or well done, it simply is that it's getting old. But if you are not tired of those love triangles and are looking for Peeta/Katniss/Gale stories, then this sure will make you happy.

Now, the characters.
The characters are too cliché. This is really the only way to put it. While of course, the characters could be interresting, it feels like all their traits have been exagerated and intensified to much so we could learn to know them even in a small novel.
In example, the character of her aunt. While it would have been interresting to have this character that despises the main character and makes her life harder, this is to exagerated. It is best to keep some realism, and that character had none, has no one would be that directly awful. A more subtle way to approach her despicable character would have been best.
It also feels like the author tries to force pity on us for the main character, between being an orphan, having a terrible aunt and two terrible cousins (cenderella, much?) and being bullied at school by none else that her terrible cousin Julianna.

The setting of the story is actually quite interresting, for it is one that has not been explored much. Grazi Kelly grew up in a small Catholic town, with her Catholic family. She goes to a religious school, and church is very important, even though the time is ours. It is not exagerated enough to be unreal, but since it is not frequent, it makes a great twist in what we are now used to read, which makes the story more original.

Now unto the writing. This is actually the thing that lost the author and this book some major points, sadly. While I truthfully appreciated the story here, there was way too many mistakes to make the novel enjoyable to read. However, this is very sad as I feel the novel should not be neglected for this reason, as it is actually a very good story, and to be honest, a part of me wants to read the sequel. A giant part of me. While I don't want to go and read another novel full of mistakes, let alone pay for one, I must say that C.D. Gorri knew how to captivate me enough with her story that I probably won't have a choice than to go and read her second instalment in the series, Hunter's Moon.
That being said, here are the major problems in the writing of the book:
1) A lot of words in Italian and Latin are used. This is actually a big problem, as it is very annoying to receive words all the time, at random, that you have no idea what they mean, and honestly, Italian and Latin are simply not the most known languages. Particularly with Italian, it's just words here and there, and it feels like the author is just trying to remember the reader that Grazi is Italian on her mother's side. However, the reader, not being an idiot, probably understood that by now.
2) The verb time. In her book, C.D Gorri passes from past to present and present to past in her verb time without any explanation as of why, nor any good reason to do it. The verb time is not employed the way it should actually be.
3) Comas. Another problem here is that the famous comas are never where they are supposed to be, not because there is some where they are not supposed to be, but because where there should be a coma, there is most likely none to be found, which is quite annoying.
4) Missing words and letters. Another aspect is that it feels like this book as never been corrected or read by the author. Maybe that is the case, but it shouldn't be. Living with a writer myself, I know my sister spent ten years correcting her novel, and reading it again and again, to then re-write it again and again. It's a lot of hard work, but it just has to be done. Therefore, as this was probably not done, a lot of small words are missing here and there, making sentence that don't make sense. Sometimes, it's letters that are missing, mostly at the beggining of words, which transforms the actual word into another one that do not have it's place there.
5) SMS vocabulary. That, to me, might very well be the whorst, simply because it would have been easy and obvious not to use any. On internet,  via chat rooms or sms, it's okay to use abbreviations and chat language. When I am on my computer, I expect to have to use the Internet Slang Dictionary.
When I am reading a novel, not so much. Personally, I think it's not okay to use those in a book, except of course if they are used to represent an sms exchange or an email or something like that. Here, we get at any unexpected time "words" like LOL, WTH, Idk, OMG, u, ttyl, tlc. It's a novel, not an sms, complete words should be used, in my humble opinion.

And so, the final score is...




To finish, I really would like to insist on the fact that with more work and revision, this novel would have scored a very higher score, has the story was quite interresting.

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