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books_and_coffee 's review for:
Ripper
by Isabel Allende
This book was 60% backstory, 40% extraneous tangents, 78% telling-not-showing, 45% improbabilities, 30% boredom, 25% plot holes, 10% long-winded villainous confessions, and 15% plot.
Yes, I know that adds to up to more than 100%. It’s 293% and that’s how positive I am that I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.
For our teenage sleuth, think the female, gothic, less charismatic version of Encyclopedia Brown with far more grisly crime . (PS I do not mean the comparison as a slight to Sobol’s memorable books from my childhood.)
Too many to list, here are the top complaints that I still remember...
* The author's excessive use of colons. She must favor this form of punctuation: she used it like she was being paid to. It got old after a while: colons are so grabby and they don’t stand back to let you enjoy the language. I do favor a good semicolon: trust me, she used those a lot too. But the colon should be used sparingly: it wasn’t here: it became irritating after the 4000th appearance.
* I especially loved the part where Ryan Miller took the safety off his Glock. Oh, wait a minute, that’s right--Glocks don’t have external safeties.
* Supposedly this book had a splattering of magical realism. Either I didn’t see it, or I can’t tell magical realism from story flaws. There were several plot holes and inconsistencies in this story, but I suppose I would rather call those things "magical realism" too.
* Is it common practice to hand over confidential open case files to your teen daughter to blab all over the internet, especially your "ace up the sleeve" police investigation details? Yeah, I didn't think so.
* Unrealistic, confusing characters that I didn’t care about. Examples...Alan Keller was always rich, but at first he was rich-frugal in a shabby suit, then he was excessive and spendthrifty. Bob Martin is a bright case-cracking star on the police force, but he’s never heard of Socrates or the word “nepotism.”
* Any unpredictability in the twists was not due to witty storytelling or plotting, but rather because the author pulled them out of her butt with no foundation and buildup. "Aha! Plot twist!"
* Kind of boring. And slow. Mostly due to backstory, irrelevant rambling, and peripheral characters trying to steal excessive page time.
The end. Probably wasted too much breath on this already. Disappointing first read by this author. Only possibility of me picking up another of her books is the extreme and widespread shock from other readers who insist this is not the typical caliber of Isabel Allende's work.
Yes, I know that adds to up to more than 100%. It’s 293% and that’s how positive I am that I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.
For our teenage sleuth, think the female, gothic, less charismatic version of Encyclopedia Brown with far more grisly crime . (PS I do not mean the comparison as a slight to Sobol’s memorable books from my childhood.)
Too many to list, here are the top complaints that I still remember...
* The author's excessive use of colons. She must favor this form of punctuation: she used it like she was being paid to. It got old after a while: colons are so grabby and they don’t stand back to let you enjoy the language. I do favor a good semicolon: trust me, she used those a lot too. But the colon should be used sparingly: it wasn’t here: it became irritating after the 4000th appearance.
* I especially loved the part where Ryan Miller took the safety off his Glock. Oh, wait a minute, that’s right--Glocks don’t have external safeties.
* Supposedly this book had a splattering of magical realism. Either I didn’t see it, or I can’t tell magical realism from story flaws. There were several plot holes and inconsistencies in this story, but I suppose I would rather call those things "magical realism" too.
* Is it common practice to hand over confidential open case files to your teen daughter to blab all over the internet, especially your "ace up the sleeve" police investigation details? Yeah, I didn't think so.
* Unrealistic, confusing characters that I didn’t care about. Examples...Alan Keller was always rich, but at first he was rich-frugal in a shabby suit, then he was excessive and spendthrifty. Bob Martin is a bright case-cracking star on the police force, but he’s never heard of Socrates or the word “nepotism.”
* Any unpredictability in the twists was not due to witty storytelling or plotting, but rather because the author pulled them out of her butt with no foundation and buildup. "Aha! Plot twist!"
* Kind of boring. And slow. Mostly due to backstory, irrelevant rambling, and peripheral characters trying to steal excessive page time.
The end. Probably wasted too much breath on this already. Disappointing first read by this author. Only possibility of me picking up another of her books is the extreme and widespread shock from other readers who insist this is not the typical caliber of Isabel Allende's work.