So the last time I found myself without any reading material I went to Twitter and asked their lovely writing community if there was anyone who had a book out with less than five reviews and a few brave souls stepped forward and offered me their stories. I have completed reading the first one, The Sun God\u2019s Tomb by CJ Evans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I didn\u2019t have any idea what I walking into with this\none. I have since learned it was a debut novel by a very young author so I will\nbe treating it as such in this book review. The first clue I might not be\ndealing with someone used to the business was the back cover. There instead of\na photo of the author\u2019s face I saw a photo of his leg being climbed up by a\nvicious attack squirrel. I chuckled, I admit it, but this made me wonder if\nthis was a comedy book? I was super confused to read on as the author bio\nswitched to a blurb without any separation. After I figured it out I sat down\nto read the actual story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first thing I noticed was the title page was numbered.\nOh boy, not off to a good start here. Formatting issues continued with a copyright\npage where his middle initial was not capitalized, and an index page which was\u2026.\na glorious mess. Normally, at this point, had I found this book in any other\nway, I probably would have not looked into any further. Clearly it\u2019s the work\nof an amateur. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I got to the actual story and tried to be my super patient self. I was surprised it wasn\u2019t bad. Honestly a bit shocked. However the characters were fleshed out and the story plodded along at a steady pace with no missing plot lines, gaps, or major story arch errors. It was set in the 1920\u2019s, a small group of middle aged men who\u2019d fought in WWI and a couple of hilariously temperamental French girlfriends. What I found most difficult was the first chapter which bounced between three languages \u2013 the English of the narration and the Spanish and French the main characters were spouting to random cameo characters. I know enough French to follow along but I found the Spanish, which I don\u2019t know, quite irritating. I had to read the whole sentence in complete Gibberish before it be would revealed in English what was probably said in the next sentence. A little bit of this is OK but not pages worth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From here I started noticing errors in the text. The first\nglaring one was when one of the characters was memorized. I do believe the word\nshould have been mesmerized. After that and two more typos I started taking\nnotes. I\u2019m NOT an editor and I probably missed quite a bit but over the course\nof the rest of the book I circled almost 20 typos, missing words, extra words,\nand confused words. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn’t obvious that this story was written by what I am assuming is a young teenager. I mean shockingly he seems to write about middle aged white dudes really well. <\/em>Disturbingly so, although I have to wonder where he\u2019s getting his opinion of French women from! (That\u2019s honestly just cheekily hilarious.) The whole book is extremely <\/em>similar to Indiana Jones, and this is coming from someone who only watched that movie once when I was probably in kindergarten. There\u2019s the group of dusty old men, there\u2019s the damsel in distress, and a mission through a booby trapped temple that suspiciously has lots of snakes a rolling boulder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Normally I would just keep my mouth shut, not bother\nreviewing this, and get on with my life, but the acknowledgement in the back\ntugged at my heart strings. It thanked mom for her encouragement and the\npatience of friends. And sweetly, also the reader. So, I guess that\u2019s what this book review is about today \u2013 not so much a review as a reminder to be kind and help out those who are just starting on their journey. If you’d like to do the same you can find this book on Amazon<\/a> (and I will also get a small commission for any clicks.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So the last time I found myself without any reading material I went to Twitter and asked their lovely writing community if there was anyone who had a book out with less than five reviews and a few brave souls<\/p>\n
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\nOK FINE. I did something I never do. I collected all the errors and wrote them\ndown and also gave some formatting advice in a direct message on Twitter. And then\nI gently left a review that wasn\u2019t tooooo harsh but did point out it\u2019s a little\ntoo <\/em>similar to Indiana Jones. I do\nnot believe it is my job to crush the spirits of any new young writers but I\ncan at times offer guidance. And I hope he does fix these issues \u2013 because if he\nfigures that out I honestly do believe he\u2019ll get better with time and be a very\ndecent young writer someday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n