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megplikestoread 's review for:
The Stranded
by Sarah Daniels
The premise behind this book was really cool and interesting. You get 3 different POVs in this book (a medic in training, the captain of the police, and a member of one of the rebel factions on the ship). Sometimes the POVs were changed and it didn't make sense to swap them for 2 pages before returning back to another POV. The swap didn't add anything to the storyline or give any other clues away. In fact, I found the new POV would sometimes repeat details from the previous POV. In that way, continuity was staggered. The diverse characters made for a compelling story initially but without any real development, they fell flat. The antagonist of the book, the captain of the police, was almost ridiculously evil. His POV and background almost forced the reader to care about his motives, but he felt small compared to other characters. His POV was also in 3rd person, whereas the other to POVs were in 1st person. I don't know the intent behind that, but it might have been more compelling if they were all in 1st person to make us feel for the antagonist.
The prose was another issue I couldn't get past. There is a time and place for informal speech and maybe that is an insight to the characters, but not every sentence. It reminded me of Cyberpunk 2077 and got to be annoying. For instance, instead of saying "I'm going there in the morning" a character would say "Going there in the morning." You would think it's not that bad as a one-off or every now and then, but it got to be every sentence with one character.
The pacing was my last issue. It was slow in the beginning, revved up towards the middle, slowed down, spiked back up, and then was non-stop until the end. Make a climax a climax or it becomes lackluster. I don't think I'll continue just because of the writer's style even though I'm interested in seeing what happens next.
The prose was another issue I couldn't get past. There is a time and place for informal speech and maybe that is an insight to the characters, but not every sentence. It reminded me of Cyberpunk 2077 and got to be annoying. For instance, instead of saying "I'm going there in the morning" a character would say "Going there in the morning." You would think it's not that bad as a one-off or every now and then, but it got to be every sentence with one character.
The pacing was my last issue. It was slow in the beginning, revved up towards the middle, slowed down, spiked back up, and then was non-stop until the end. Make a climax a climax or it becomes lackluster. I don't think I'll continue just because of the writer's style even though I'm interested in seeing what happens next.