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2.89 AVERAGE
2.89 AVERAGE
DNF.
I tried. I didn't succeed. I found the opening chapter exceptionally disturbing and thankfully the rest of the story didn't carry on from that POV because I don't know if I would have been able to get through it. It's about an unknown boy (not Danny) about to kill and mutilate a cat. Pretty gross. But it's written succinctly. It roiled up a pretty strong reaction in me. So the writing did it's job. But that's where it left me.
After that, it snaps into Danny's head but it doesn't stay there. The whole story reads kind of schizophrenic in that it's kind of limited third but it's talking in an almost stilted, highly educated voice that is not befitting Danny at all. And then it head-hops something awful. It's jarring to switch POVs from one sentence to the next. Very few authors can do it and have it flow. McKinty isn't one of them. It just felt all over the place, I couldn't get a grip on any of the characters and from what I was seeing, I didn't like most of them.
Danny's a bit of a jerk, not bailing out his step-dad simply because he didn't want to (the thing with the cops was all a misunderstanding, easily solved should Danny have opened his mouth). His step-dad is the token hippy guy with some of the most cliched dialogue I've ever come across. Danny's mom is just as cliched and is barely a presence in the story up to the point where I stopped reading (about 100 pages in). The interaction between these three is something out of a paint-by-numbers lesson on parental dialogue. It was painful at times to read.
Info-dumps are set up through awkward dialogue (everyone's guilty of this) and there's far too much name-dropping going on. And then the interjections with the mystery boy and his cat obsession were really weird and didn't seem to be going where. I get it. It's funky and mysterious. Get on with it.
Just the whole thing felt forced and it eventually became a burden to read. It got to a point where I was begrudging having to read it. That's usually a good time to stop. The plot had great potential and the set-up for the school was well-played. It's definitely a bit of a creepy place. But the overall execution fell short for me. I just felt the writing wasn't up to snuff and the emphasis was usually in places it didn't really need to be, and was grossly lacking where it should have been. Maybe the story got more intriguing but I couldn't tough it out.
I tried. I didn't succeed. I found the opening chapter exceptionally disturbing and thankfully the rest of the story didn't carry on from that POV because I don't know if I would have been able to get through it. It's about an unknown boy (not Danny) about to kill and mutilate a cat. Pretty gross. But it's written succinctly. It roiled up a pretty strong reaction in me. So the writing did it's job. But that's where it left me.
After that, it snaps into Danny's head but it doesn't stay there. The whole story reads kind of schizophrenic in that it's kind of limited third but it's talking in an almost stilted, highly educated voice that is not befitting Danny at all. And then it head-hops something awful. It's jarring to switch POVs from one sentence to the next. Very few authors can do it and have it flow. McKinty isn't one of them. It just felt all over the place, I couldn't get a grip on any of the characters and from what I was seeing, I didn't like most of them.
Danny's a bit of a jerk, not bailing out his step-dad simply because he didn't want to (the thing with the cops was all a misunderstanding, easily solved should Danny have opened his mouth). His step-dad is the token hippy guy with some of the most cliched dialogue I've ever come across. Danny's mom is just as cliched and is barely a presence in the story up to the point where I stopped reading (about 100 pages in). The interaction between these three is something out of a paint-by-numbers lesson on parental dialogue. It was painful at times to read.
Info-dumps are set up through awkward dialogue (everyone's guilty of this) and there's far too much name-dropping going on. And then the interjections with the mystery boy and his cat obsession were really weird and didn't seem to be going where. I get it. It's funky and mysterious. Get on with it.
Just the whole thing felt forced and it eventually became a burden to read. It got to a point where I was begrudging having to read it. That's usually a good time to stop. The plot had great potential and the set-up for the school was well-played. It's definitely a bit of a creepy place. But the overall execution fell short for me. I just felt the writing wasn't up to snuff and the emphasis was usually in places it didn't really need to be, and was grossly lacking where it should have been. Maybe the story got more intriguing but I couldn't tough it out.
Danny Lopez and his mom Juanita and step-dad Walt live in Las Vegas where his mom works at a Casino for Mr. Glynn. They move to Colorado because Glynn is opening a new casino and wants Danny’s mom to manage it. Danny is therefore enrolled in Cobalt Junior High where they use the system of Direct Instruction. Direct Instruction is where the teachers and students read from a script. They do not permit talking aka triangulation at this school and the students have to wear white gloves all the time. This is where Danny meets Mr. Lebkuchen, the principle of the school. The students he meets there are Charlie, Tom, Olivia, Cooper, Hector and Todd. They are member of various secret groups within the school.
Before Danny arrived in Cobalt, there was a “cat killing.” There were more after he arrived and he and a neighbor and fellow student, Antonia aka Tony try to figure out who the cat killer is. They enlist the help of one of the chain-gang at Walt’s work named Bob Randall, who is an expert in crimes. Bob is in prison for check writing and is expected to be released on parole in the coming months. Bob explains to them what they need to figure out in order to find out who the cat killer is. This story tells of the process they go through to identify the killer.
I like the way the characters develop in this book. There are so many to keep track of and it is easy to associate them with the secret groups that they are members of. It was hard for me to put this book down once I got into the plot and they were actively trying to figure out who the cat killer was. A good read.
Before Danny arrived in Cobalt, there was a “cat killing.” There were more after he arrived and he and a neighbor and fellow student, Antonia aka Tony try to figure out who the cat killer is. They enlist the help of one of the chain-gang at Walt’s work named Bob Randall, who is an expert in crimes. Bob is in prison for check writing and is expected to be released on parole in the coming months. Bob explains to them what they need to figure out in order to find out who the cat killer is. This story tells of the process they go through to identify the killer.
I like the way the characters develop in this book. There are so many to keep track of and it is easy to associate them with the secret groups that they are members of. It was hard for me to put this book down once I got into the plot and they were actively trying to figure out who the cat killer was. A good read.
Deviant has its high points, but is mostly a disappointment. McKinty does the POV of a disaffected teen pretty well, but inserts bizarre asides from the POV of other characters randomly. Instead of showing attitudes through reactions, he takes this lazy way out to tell what the other characters are thinking. Another sour note to me was the occasional slang or other cultural reference that was clearly dated pre-2000, when the main character was a typical young teen boy (no special education or intelligence indicated). The conclusion was so overexplained that it was no longer very creepy. I could go on, but the bottom line is that I didn't like it, which is too bad, because there was real potential here.
It took a bit to get going, but once the story locked in animal mutilations, chain gangs and a strange charter school principal, it really picked up the pace. With the location in Colorado Springs, this will be popular with CO kids (and perhaps not so popular with residents of the Springs, which is characterized as a somewhat odd place. There's also a skateboard named Sunflower, an odd boy with a camera obscura in his attic, a Tesla coil and a bit of romance to keep readers interested. The author even managed to squeeze in commentary on casinos, a growing industry here in Colorado. A spooky premise, with a scary (to think about the sequel... ) ending.