Scan barcode
A review by aprilleigh
Gretchen by Shannon Kirk
4.0
I had to chew on this one for a while before reviewing. The story itself, despite the claims of other reviewers who say it took a bizarre turn about 75% of the way through, was amazing. Solid imagination and beautifully detailed plot. Yes, the story changed dramatically at that point, but only because we finally started seeing what was really going on with all the creepy stuff.
Essentially, there were two different and entirely independent plots being detailed, with "coincidence" putting them together. There's the whole plot with Lucy and her mom, which all by itself made a really good story, probably more mystery than thriller, and definitely not horror. The plotline surrounding Gretchen and her father is independent of that and equally good, but this one is definitely horror. They were beautifully intertwined and the details of each plot played well against the background of the other plot, but they could have both been separate stories. They're better together, and it made for a very intriguing book.
My problem with it, and I'm well-aware this is only jarring to those of us with a high-level command of English language and grammar, is the poor editing job. For example (and trust me when I tell you this is far from the only one I could point to), I don't expect the average person to know the difference between "affect" and "effect." I don't even expect all writers to know this because imagination and good story-telling don't always go hand-in-hand with high-level language skills. I most definitely expect editors and proofreaders to know the difference, and for the author to be thanking people in her acknowledgments for doing these jobs when it's clear that they did them poorly just makes me wonder how these people got these jobs in the first place. Loss of one star for this alone, because I'm really tired of being jarred out of an otherwise excellent story by poor grammar, spelling, etc.
Essentially, there were two different and entirely independent plots being detailed, with "coincidence" putting them together. There's the whole plot with Lucy and her mom, which all by itself made a really good story, probably more mystery than thriller, and definitely not horror. The plotline surrounding Gretchen and her father is independent of that and equally good, but this one is definitely horror. They were beautifully intertwined and the details of each plot played well against the background of the other plot, but they could have both been separate stories. They're better together, and it made for a very intriguing book.
My problem with it, and I'm well-aware this is only jarring to those of us with a high-level command of English language and grammar, is the poor editing job. For example (and trust me when I tell you this is far from the only one I could point to), I don't expect the average person to know the difference between "affect" and "effect." I don't even expect all writers to know this because imagination and good story-telling don't always go hand-in-hand with high-level language skills. I most definitely expect editors and proofreaders to know the difference, and for the author to be thanking people in her acknowledgments for doing these jobs when it's clear that they did them poorly just makes me wonder how these people got these jobs in the first place. Loss of one star for this alone, because I'm really tired of being jarred out of an otherwise excellent story by poor grammar, spelling, etc.