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A review by cate_ninetails
Lost in Static by Christina Philippou
1.0
I found this book difficult to finish almost from the very beginning, but it's hard for me to completely give up once I've started something. I feel the need to see it through to bitter end, so it took me some days to manage this. The characters don't feel very well realised, their voices are strangled and unnatural especially in the case of Ruby, whose parroting of 'mate' to bookend a phrase sometimes a comical amount of times per page became quickly grating. It made her inner dialogue in particular torturous to read, and makes the author seem out of touch with natural speech. Errors like this plague the book from start to finish.
Our protagonists are completing their first term at university, which understandably can give them some unlikeable traits but honestly at no time did I find myself rooting for anyone at all. Writing a back and forth between the characters, some unseen or never introduced at all, was a strange choice that I don't feel landed well for me as a reader. It's possible more straightforward storytelling would have fared better as the 'letters and emails' motif is at times confusing but for the most part unnecessary. The plot was meandering in a way that I suspect is meant to draw the reader in for a mysterious romp, but personally I was unable to drum up any interest in the people or the setting of this book. Even the storyline reveals at the merciful end are not rewarding, I didn't feel that they made much sense at all. I think a conscious effort at editing would have done this book a world of good, as it is I just didn't find it enjoyable.
Our protagonists are completing their first term at university, which understandably can give them some unlikeable traits but honestly at no time did I find myself rooting for anyone at all. Writing a back and forth between the characters, some unseen or never introduced at all, was a strange choice that I don't feel landed well for me as a reader. It's possible more straightforward storytelling would have fared better as the 'letters and emails' motif is at times confusing but for the most part unnecessary. The plot was meandering in a way that I suspect is meant to draw the reader in for a mysterious romp, but personally I was unable to drum up any interest in the people or the setting of this book. Even the storyline reveals at the merciful end are not rewarding, I didn't feel that they made much sense at all. I think a conscious effort at editing would have done this book a world of good, as it is I just didn't find it enjoyable.