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A review by greenerbeans
Deceptive Calm by Patricia Skipper
1.0
This is quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. I only read this book as I was going to be compensated for my review, however, after leaving my honest review I did not receive compensation and am no longer able to access my account and was told there were errors in my review on the review website. Not only that, they list the compensation as a "bonus" and state your review is a "volunteer" non-paid review. Horrendous book, regret reading.
At the beginning of this story, there was a lot of unnecessary dialogue and information that made it hard to follow and a bit annoying to read. This book seems to have no main storyline for the first half of the book, with it picking up some semblance of cohesion after the halfway mark, then completely fumbling for the last chapters of the book. The writing style of this entire story is extremely juvenile; the beginning is choppy with several short sentences, bouncing between too much dialogue and between several characters. It is confusing to follow.
The book did become more cohesive and not as difficult to read after the halfway point, however, the storyline still made no sense and seemed rushed. In a matter of pages, the story did a complete 180 on the writing structure and suddenly the characters were in a completely different part of their lives. This skipped over any real character development in the story and made it impossible to bond with the characters and empathize with them at their low points in the story. It felt as if the author did not know where they were going for the first 150 pages and only just started figuring it out mid-writing. Vanessa is the alleged main character in this story, but many parts focus on her best friend, Trisha, which makes the story even more confusing as they are completely uneventful and add nothing of substance.
The last 10% of this book was utterly ridiculous. It was not only rushed but also sloppy, unrealistic, and extremely disappointing. The author haphazardly decided to have a "feel good" ending with the unsavory characters getting what they deserve but had no build-up to their negative endings. This book has graphic descriptions of sexual encounters that can be uncomfortable as well as unnecessary. The men in this book involved with the main character are very coercive.
This story felt as if it was not appropriate being written and told by a white woman, there were uses of racial slurs, and depictions of racism and hate crimes seemed not only unrealistic but written in an ignorant manner. There are depictions of sexual assault in this book.
At the beginning of this story, there was a lot of unnecessary dialogue and information that made it hard to follow and a bit annoying to read. This book seems to have no main storyline for the first half of the book, with it picking up some semblance of cohesion after the halfway mark, then completely fumbling for the last chapters of the book. The writing style of this entire story is extremely juvenile; the beginning is choppy with several short sentences, bouncing between too much dialogue and between several characters. It is confusing to follow.
The book did become more cohesive and not as difficult to read after the halfway point, however, the storyline still made no sense and seemed rushed. In a matter of pages, the story did a complete 180 on the writing structure and suddenly the characters were in a completely different part of their lives. This skipped over any real character development in the story and made it impossible to bond with the characters and empathize with them at their low points in the story. It felt as if the author did not know where they were going for the first 150 pages and only just started figuring it out mid-writing. Vanessa is the alleged main character in this story, but many parts focus on her best friend, Trisha, which makes the story even more confusing as they are completely uneventful and add nothing of substance.
The last 10% of this book was utterly ridiculous. It was not only rushed but also sloppy, unrealistic, and extremely disappointing. The author haphazardly decided to have a "feel good" ending with the unsavory characters getting what they deserve but had no build-up to their negative endings. This book has graphic descriptions of sexual encounters that can be uncomfortable as well as unnecessary. The men in this book involved with the main character are very coercive.
This story felt as if it was not appropriate being written and told by a white woman, there were uses of racial slurs, and depictions of racism and hate crimes seemed not only unrealistic but written in an ignorant manner. There are depictions of sexual assault in this book.