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In "On Writing", Stephen King makes reference to that moment when you read a book that some publishing house paid for and think, "I can write better than this". This was another one of those moments for me. The storyline is a cute, coming of age story and it was what kept me going. The main character, Gabe Whitman is a too good to be true kid who is a world class pianist, a great student, is able to disarm two gunmen who are holding he and his girlfriend at gunpoint and speaks several languages. You get the picture, not terribly believable. The dialogue is not authentic. There are teens using words that few adults I know would typically use and they all have a fabulous grasp on grammar .... yep, teenagers. Kellerman makes frequent use of the word "dude" in an attempt to make her dialogue true to teen life. Worse yet, every time I begin to forget that I'm reading a story and feel like I am IN the story world she drops a "Look at my elegant vocabulary" bomb on me. Her favorite is "he/she regarded him". Faye, nobody says that in real life. We "look at", "check out", or even "assess" each other, but we don't "regard" one another in real life.
All of this being said, I was able to finish it and the story was mildly interesting. But if you want to read a story about a teen boy coming of age, you'd do MUCH better to pick up a copy of Stephen King's Joyland.
All of this being said, I was able to finish it and the story was mildly interesting. But if you want to read a story about a teen boy coming of age, you'd do MUCH better to pick up a copy of Stephen King's Joyland.