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lalauren04's review against another edition
3.0
I’ve rated One Dead Hen as 3.5 stars.
The book’s bio definitely caught my attention. Having not read any of the previous books in this series, I was unsure of what to expect. One Dead Hen definitely took me by surprise, but in a good way. It took several pages for me to get into it since the heavy dialect of the main character was quite difficult to read at first, but once I got into the flow of the story I found myself hooked and really enjoyed it. I finished it in just a couple of days and even took it into work with me to read during my lunch break.
The book is both funny and hugely original. I love reading a story with interesting and well developed characters - which this story had - and Royston Blake is definitely unique. In all honesty, the main character of One Dead Hen should not be enjoyable to read and certainly not likeable, and yet somehow he is. This alone is perhaps testament to the brilliant writing of Charlie Williams.
To sum up, I thought this book was a cleverly written, witty and satirical read and well worth checking out. I've already recommended it to a number of my friends :)
The book’s bio definitely caught my attention. Having not read any of the previous books in this series, I was unsure of what to expect. One Dead Hen definitely took me by surprise, but in a good way. It took several pages for me to get into it since the heavy dialect of the main character was quite difficult to read at first, but once I got into the flow of the story I found myself hooked and really enjoyed it. I finished it in just a couple of days and even took it into work with me to read during my lunch break.
The book is both funny and hugely original. I love reading a story with interesting and well developed characters - which this story had - and Royston Blake is definitely unique. In all honesty, the main character of One Dead Hen should not be enjoyable to read and certainly not likeable, and yet somehow he is. This alone is perhaps testament to the brilliant writing of Charlie Williams.
To sum up, I thought this book was a cleverly written, witty and satirical read and well worth checking out. I've already recommended it to a number of my friends :)
miametro's review against another edition
1.0
This was a bookclub read - not something I'd usually pick up and perhaps there's a good reason for that because I didn't enjoy it at all (sorry Steve!)
The plot was infuriating, the main character's narration was irritating and crude to the point of disgusting for the majority of the book and the writing felt stiff and forced in places. Also, who was Blakey talking to? Every so often he'd break the fourth wall and talk as if he was writing to a recipient, which never got explained.
I couldn't see the reasoning for the local news articles interspersing the chapters, nor the "statements" from the police chief which were so far from real life - nobody speaks that way, especially in a professional capacity.
The plot didn't make sense, the ending was ridiculous in my opinion, urgh. Everything about this book completely rubbed me up the wrong way!
The plot was infuriating, the main character's narration was irritating and crude to the point of disgusting for the majority of the book and the writing felt stiff and forced in places. Also, who was Blakey talking to? Every so often he'd break the fourth wall and talk as if he was writing to a recipient, which never got explained.
I couldn't see the reasoning for the local news articles interspersing the chapters, nor the "statements" from the police chief which were so far from real life - nobody speaks that way, especially in a professional capacity.
The plot didn't make sense, the ending was ridiculous in my opinion, urgh. Everything about this book completely rubbed me up the wrong way!
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