Reviews

A Life To Waste by Andrew Lennon

sea_caummisar's review against another edition

First of all, I want to thank Andrew Lennon for a free code for an audio version of this book. This was my first full audiobook. All the samples of other books I listened to seemed boring and dry. After testing this one, I found out that I can change the speed and that helped greatly with my boredom. It's nothing against this narrator (he was great), all of them seemed slow to me. So anyways, I sped it up and listened to this in one sitting.
The beginning of the story seemed to drag. I was getting bored with it... But then it started. This book was great on audio because this bigfoot villain has such a creepy whistle! Not only did this audiobook give me the creeps, but towards the end I was hanging onto every word. I had to know what happened next. You've got a crazy guy in a bad guy's lair and I loved it! The details of the mutilated people were great. I like a little bit of gore. Actually, I prefer alot of gore, but this book was enough to satiate my taste.

livingdeadbabe's review against another edition

3.0

I feel like this was 2 separate books. Dave is top of the world then Dave is at the bottom and unhappy. Random killer… maybe if something was thrown in along the way like Dave saw a missing poster ect.. since so many people were taken. I didn’t hate the book. I liked the murderous freak and wanted more elaboration. Maybe Dave was too self absorbed to have notice missing people. Trauma changes

100pagesaday's review against another edition

4.0

This novella (approx. 158 pages) is in the extremely gory serial killer genre. A quick read that I read in one sitting since I had to know what the heck was going on here.

Dave once had dreams to be an Olympic runner, but that all came crashing down one day in a tragic accident. Now, he is 35 years old and lives with his mother. Dave is an absolutely abhorrent person, he smokes, drinks, does not have a job, does not do anything around the house and abuses his mother, who takes care of him. That is, until one day when his neighbor goes missing and then his mother. Dave actually decides to do something about it.

For a short story, this has a lot of character building. We get to know Dave and his past extremely well, even though he is now an awful person. When the horror does start, it hits head on. There is not a lot of suspense building, but you are thrown right into the action of tracking down a killer and vivid descriptions of his slaughter. Will these events change Dave? I hope so...

This book was provided for free by the author in exchange for an honest review.

stitching_ghost's review against another edition

3.0

The first 30% of this book was just exposition and I don't think it was necessary at all. I also found that the story suffered from the need to demonize Dave for being traumatized and ill equipped to handle it.
When we got to the point where Dave encountered the villain and we finally stopped hearing how much Dave sucks the story got pretty good even though Dave's actions were completely out of character. The conclusion was just ok (I'm not a fan of the more trauma will fix unresolved issues trope).

abbybovenzii's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

irenemarie's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

kaylies_reads's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book was super hyped and with such an awesome cover I expected more. This horror book did not completely deliver. The beginning of the book covers a lot of background that I feel was unnecessary for a lot of the book. Some of the background could have been touched on throughout the storyline but again you get it all at once. This really made the beginning drag on and hard to get into. Then when the story was finally captivating everything was being wrapped up and the story was over. You get closer but it still felt rather abrupt. Still a good book and worth the read. This was definitely a unique storyline. Just be prepared to push through the beginning. 

tiff_bb's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

xfallenstar's review against another edition

dark

2.0

chrissypops's review against another edition

dark sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75