Review: The Strangers We Know by R.M. Mulkey

Jared regrets not spending more time with his sister before her murder. Rylee is an artist and was her best friend. When Jared visits the small town of Crescent Valley, Georgia to see where his sister lives and potentially get answers, they meet. Will their love bloom and find answers or will Rylee be the next corpse to plant flowers next to?

I wrote that description to help explain what the book is about. From the title and description on the product page, I was under the impression that I was going to be reading a mystery. After reading the book, I am more convinced it is a romance novel set in the context of a mystery. When assuming this, I think it's easier to enjoy.

If you are a mystery lover like myself, who likes to solve the case, you probably will be disappointed, unless the types of mysteries you like are dramas such as NCIS where you are not really allowed to solve the case. You may know the culprit, but the real focus is the drama.

I did find myself interested in the book and often looked for time to read. However, I found myself disappointed that the progression was primarily revelations rather than investigations and deductions.

A tricky thing with mysteries is that they depend upon the twist revelation to be well executed. A servable twist explains things. A great twist not only explains things, but completely changes how you view events, and it does so by overturning something the audience took for granted. Examples of this would be the Prestige, Empire Strikes Back, or the Sixth Sense. In this novel, I felt like it really only affected my view of one character, who was not the culprit.

Another thing about mysteries is the deduction process. A good mystery, in my opinion, shows more than it tells. Here, rather than actions leading to results, people just inform. This applies to the storytelling as well. It's said that Jared is a good negotiator, but I really did not see any evidence of that.

Finally, the ending has a lot to be desired of. It does not make sense in terms of some character actions. While it does tie up the main mystery, it still left me with some questions. At the same time, the last chapter felt tacked on. As a result, I see this as mostly a plot-driven-story rather than a story-driven-plot, which is probably best for a solid mystery.

But what if we think of this as a romance first? Then I don't think my complaints above matter so much. If you are not interested in who is the culprit but whether Jared and Rylee get together or not, I think it works. I'm not a romance expert, but I found it interesting enough. For me, the importance of romance is not if the characters are compatible, but rather the emotions and choices they make feel real and nothing objectionable happens. For those two points, I think it succeeds here.

One critique that will still stand is that it can be a bit hard to read at times. Occasionally a paragraph would take up a whole page. I would sometimes have to backtrack and re-read entire pages. One mystery in each chapter is when it occurs and where as sometimes you might expect it to continue to right off the previous, but it takes place days later. There are also a few grammatical errors, though one might be how they talk in Georgia. I asked my colleague from Georgia and she said that she has heard some people speak of the dead like they are alive like “Jess is our friend.”

In conclusion, it may not be the best novel you have ever read, and certainly not a best mystery, but as a romance, I thinks it's fine.

Note: if you are curious about language content, there was at least one f-bomb and a quite a few cases of "God" used for emphasis. Otherwise, a relatively clean book when it comes to language. As for sexual content, there was nothing explicit, but Jared is hinted at doing one night stands with many women before the events of the book.

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Review: The Nightmare by Rachel Sandell

Greetings!
Today, I would like to share a review of The Nightmare: A Short Story by Rachel Sandell. Quick notes:

1. This is not a horror story despite what the title might have you think
2. Since this is a short story based off Greek Mythology, spoilers are a bit hard to avoid

Summary
This story takes a look at two questions:

1. What were the god of the Underworld's thoughts about falling in love with Persephone? 
2. What if Hades was good and Zeus was the malicious one?

The result is a story from Hades point of view about falling in love with Persephone. The story is entirely from his perspective and his thoughts and that serves as the appeal that carries the story through. The result is an interesting story with potential to be even better, but something that I still enjoyed.

Structure
Since the story is told by Hades himself, I found it a bit difficult to understand the structure. While I can understand the story and follow along, I found myself afterwards wondering how I was supposed to interpret the storytelling.The best that I can think of is that it was reflecting while also moving forward in the present. That would help explain why the ending does not appear to reflect the beginning. However, because Hades is the narrator and speaking in past tense, it's a bit difficult to confirm if that was the case.

Accessibility

While Rachel does a fair job of providing most of the details needed to enjoy the story, my gap of knowledge surrounding Greek mythology made some things a little difficult to understand. However, even with a gap of knowledge, I found the book easy enough to read. After reading the story and then Wikipedia, I can see the story follows enough on course which can help explain some things I was left wondering after reading the book, though not all. 

Characters
Of all of the characters, Hades is the most developed and his perspective is what made me interested. He comes across like a bitter introvert who thinks the world hates him, but at the same time, doesn't understand why. We see the signs of trickery and we can understand why Hades feels like Zeus was always tricking him, but I was never satisfied with an answer why. This leads Zeus into being simply a villain with no understandable motive. The closest hint I get is that Hades might potentially be more powerful than all of the gods. If this is the case, perhaps it makes sense that Hades does not understand the reason himself, but that still left me wondering long after I read the story. At the same time, that could be a good setup for a followup.

Now while Hades' crush on Persephone is understandable and a good depiction on what a guy of that type might think, I did not find the actual portrayal of Persephone appealing. The impression I got was of a female stereotype who does not have a good reason for falling in love with Hades. At least not any reason that we see. The same applies to the other gods' hatred and actions as well such as Demeter taking her rage on Earth when she is angry with Hades.

Perhaps the second best-developed character is Hermes, the messenger god. A guy who perhaps best understands Hades is not evil and yet is fearful of Zeus, leading to some personal turmoil.

Moral Caution

The only morally objectionable action by Hades is taking Persephone without her consent and against her will. While he did obtain Zeus' permission, I would certainly emphasize to my son that it is not a good way to make your crush like you. However, since that is being true to source material, I cannot blame Rachel for following that path. At the same time, if the reader does not have any background knowledge of the source material, then that might leave them with a bad taste.

Writing Lessons To Glean
All of that being said, since Hades himself is a well-developed character and his thoughts are interesting enough, the story being carried by his narration works out very well. Aside from taking Persephone without her consent, he's not a guy to hate. By having a decent character with interesting thoughts, that can be enough to entice the reader and be enjoyable.

However, that is not to say the narration and thoughts do not have room for improvement. There are a few times where one paragraph took up the entire screen on my kindle. A few of these, I think could have been broken up into multiple paragraphs which would have helped with keeping my place on the page and organizing the content. In addition, I had at least one occasion where I backtracked figure out if I had not skipped a page by accident. In the end, these issues were minor enough that they did not detract enough from the experience, but if there would be a revision, I would promote paying attention to them.

Conclusion

Personally, I liked the story in the end and have no regrets for paying $1 to read it, even though I was not at all interested in the underworld or Hades. And yet, Rachel did a good job that enticed me to buy the story with just the 10% preview on the Amazon page. I was worried that there would be horror elements, but there was nothing compared to what I can expect to find in Greek Mythology. I certainly do not expect it to give me a nightmare, but I can admit it makes me think a lot.

I do think the story can be improved, maybe even reworked to help address the issues I had. Perhaps the biggest issue is that I'm not sure who the target audience is and therefore cannot make an accurate recommendation. All I can say is I like it and I think it's worth to at least preview it, but I do not have a name for the type of audience that would like the book. All I know is that I somehow happen to be one of it.

J. D. Nyle

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Review: I Told You So!: The Adventures of William and Thomas by Mark Gunning

Greetings!
As first post of the blog, I would like to share a review of I Told You So!: The Adventures of William and Thomas by Mark Gunning.

Summary
The book is a collection of six hi-jinks of William and Thomas. Primarily, William is the creative and driving force while Thomas is the accomplice and chronicler. This dynamic leads to not only fun escapades but also ones with believable and compatible characters.

Structure
Each episode is pretty much self-contained aside from a couple of references to the previous one. Each starts off with Thomas receiving texts prompting him to excitedly visit William for the next adventure. William shares plans and then they execute to a mishap but somehow amusing end. Things always go wrong somehow, but never tragic (unless you count some broken bones) and not necessarily how you expect them to go.

Length
The book is easy to read within one or three sittings. The brevity of the book may make you a bit sad, but it actually is perhaps for the best. While I don't need to read the stories a second time for myself, I can certainly see myself reaching for the book to pull a story for my son for bedtime. In fact, I can see him asking me to, "Read me the plunger one! No wait, I want to hear about the ramp again!"

There are only six escapades, but each is a decent length for a bedtime story. At the same time, by having only six episodes, the welcome has not been worn out by the end and it makes it easier to enjoy the individual episodes. I think if I was reading twelves adventures straight, I'd be a bit tired of them. But with just six, I would not mind occasionally re-reading one and then after a few months, maybe pick up the next collection.


Writing Lessons To Glean
There are two main characters in the book and Mark Gunning does a good job of making them distinct, compatible, and believable. At the same time, he does a good job harnessing the essence of two types of adolescent boys. Something that may seem silly or stupid to an adult can be incredibly cool to a 12-year-old. I remember when I was little and thinking that jumping off a ramp with a bike was so cool. I know my cousin would certainly would be the type to do these sort of escapes much to his mother's dismay.

One tiny annoyance is the overuse of William's name. I forgot Thomas' name because I feel like it's mentioned only in the title and description, whereas William's name is mentioned multiple times in the same paragraph even though the subject did not change. It's a minor thing, but it did catch my attention that I was pulled out of the book for a moment.

The book contains a few illustrations throughout, at least one for the texts and one for a plan. These are good for a few reasons. One, it actually made me more interested in the book when I read the preview. Two, it helps with understanding what is going to happen. By having a picture of the plan, it makes it easier to know what Thomas is writing about. Three, it helps with mental spacing and refresh. Small paragraphs and a little variety for the eyes helps keep the brain alive and know where they are in the story. I once read a detective novel but it was really hard to read because the paragraphs were often as large as the page. That made it easy to lose my place on the page, but here that was not an issue.


Moral Caution
From a moral standpoint, there is not much to object here. There is no swearing, no profanity, no sexual objectification, etc. The book is simply boys having fun being boys and I like that a lot. The only thing I would caution against is that, while there is no bullying, if not cautioned about, the sense of humor in the book could lead to bullying. Thomas certainly has boyish respect for William, but he also is sure to record the moment when things go wrong to laugh about.

To be fair, it could be said that Thomas is laughing at the situation and not William, but it is also understandable for William to be upset about that every time. Therefore, when reading these stories to children, who are developing their sense of humor, it would be a good time to point out how to avoid being like a bully. For more info on this opinion, I recommend reading the essay Concerning Humor.


Conclusion
I like the book. It's simple boyish fun that I would not mind reading to my own son. I hope that it would spur his imagination while also serving as caution to avoid doing too dangerous things. My only worry is the sense of humor may develop wrong. However, as long as I fulfill my role as a parent and talk to him about that sort of thing, I don't think I need to worry too much.

If you want a book that is light and fun, I recommend at least previewing this book. If you need more, I noticed it was available on Kindle Unlimited, which I read still pays the authors based off the number of pages read. This book is actually what convinced me to try out the service. I hope you enjoy reading if you decide to pick this up.

J. D. Nyle

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