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braincell4rent 's review for:
The Man In Black
by L.R. Liverpool
It pains me to say this after I was auto-approved by this publisher (I´m sorry), but I couldn´t finish this book. As a matter of fact, I don´t think I managed to read even 1/3 (I´ll try again someday, though, because I´m curious about what other reviewers say about the plot and probably my current mood also has a thing to do with leaving this unfinished).
Now, why did I drop this? There´s a bunch of things:
- I felt like there was too much pointless narration. Let me give a couple of examples. The story begins with Simon (not his name back then, but hell anyway) living with his parents in a farm, explaining a bit about his dream of being a gangster in the Wild West and move to the West. There´s a good few chapters while he manages to go there and find a gang to join. Which left me wondering, couldn´t we have started the first chapter with Simon already out in the field searching for a gang? Why not use just a few paragraphs or a couple of pages of explaining his background and then go straight to the gang plot?
And here is the thing, not only plotwise I felt there were many unnecessary things, that also happened with descriptions or narration with more particular stuff. Like, right now I don´t remember what Simon was saying, but in a moment he began thinking about an aunt and what they did back in his hometown with her, and I was like, why is he telling us this? The aunt is not currently present, is not an important character as of now, why can´t you tell her story later if she ever appears?
That annoyed me, maybe also because I prefer very straightforward narrations. I like to get to the point.
- Simon´s dreams of becoming a gangster were... very childish.
It´s what I can imagine a kid these days wanting to be when they grow up. Not only his original plan of moving out to become a delinquent (cause he thought that was cool) seemed a bit strange, but he seemed truly taken aback when he realized that -surprise, surprise-, if you are a gangster you need to commit crimes, shoot weapons and be an awful person in quite a few ways.
How naive is this character? I´d say too naive, at least at the beginning of the story (don´t know if it got better).
- There was stuff that happened in the story that looked like a stereotyped western movie... And very unlikely to happen in real life.
An example? The gang was staying at a tavern and something happened (I think a waiter made a mistake). One of the gangsters got pissed, shoot someone in the foot and then continued eating his meal as if nothing happened. No sheriff came. No nothing.
I was, once again, asking myself, what am I reading?
- The way Simon entered the gang is also very surrealist. He tripped and unintentionally saved the gang´s boss of being shot. Then, by chance, the boss accepted him in the gang because he did this "brave" thing of saving his life that way.
This seemed taken strainght from a sitcom, but I didn´t mind because I like comedy. Although... Is this really a comedy? I don´t think so, not the way its narrated.
- The love story -or the part that I saw- was very... YA in a way?
I mean, Simon and Monty don´t get along well at the begining. Why is that? I´m not sure. The narration mentions Simon finds Monty too arrogant evn before we actually see how annoying Monty is. Thus, they randomly don´t like each other.
A bit later, when the train robbery happens, they randomly change their minds (Monty especially) and begin their friendships. Or well, maybe it was not so random: Simon planned something to escape the police and it worked, that was all it took to gain Monty´s respect (I say randomly because truly, the plan was not impressive at all).
I could say more but, overall, this book needs more editing. I read reviews saying it was hard to stop reading this story but, for me, the opposite happened: It was hard to pick the story and read.
It drags for too long and, when the action happens, it´s not very believable.
Now, why did I drop this? There´s a bunch of things:
- I felt like there was too much pointless narration. Let me give a couple of examples. The story begins with Simon (not his name back then, but hell anyway) living with his parents in a farm, explaining a bit about his dream of being a gangster in the Wild West and move to the West. There´s a good few chapters while he manages to go there and find a gang to join. Which left me wondering, couldn´t we have started the first chapter with Simon already out in the field searching for a gang? Why not use just a few paragraphs or a couple of pages of explaining his background and then go straight to the gang plot?
And here is the thing, not only plotwise I felt there were many unnecessary things, that also happened with descriptions or narration with more particular stuff. Like, right now I don´t remember what Simon was saying, but in a moment he began thinking about an aunt and what they did back in his hometown with her, and I was like, why is he telling us this? The aunt is not currently present, is not an important character as of now, why can´t you tell her story later if she ever appears?
That annoyed me, maybe also because I prefer very straightforward narrations. I like to get to the point.
- Simon´s dreams of becoming a gangster were... very childish.
It´s what I can imagine a kid these days wanting to be when they grow up. Not only his original plan of moving out to become a delinquent (cause he thought that was cool) seemed a bit strange, but he seemed truly taken aback when he realized that -surprise, surprise-, if you are a gangster you need to commit crimes, shoot weapons and be an awful person in quite a few ways.
How naive is this character? I´d say too naive, at least at the beginning of the story (don´t know if it got better).
- There was stuff that happened in the story that looked like a stereotyped western movie... And very unlikely to happen in real life.
An example? The gang was staying at a tavern and something happened (I think a waiter made a mistake). One of the gangsters got pissed, shoot someone in the foot and then continued eating his meal as if nothing happened. No sheriff came. No nothing.
I was, once again, asking myself, what am I reading?
- The way Simon entered the gang is also very surrealist. He tripped and unintentionally saved the gang´s boss of being shot. Then, by chance, the boss accepted him in the gang because he did this "brave" thing of saving his life that way.
This seemed taken strainght from a sitcom, but I didn´t mind because I like comedy. Although... Is this really a comedy? I don´t think so, not the way its narrated.
- The love story -or the part that I saw- was very... YA in a way?
I mean, Simon and Monty don´t get along well at the begining. Why is that? I´m not sure. The narration mentions Simon finds Monty too arrogant evn before we actually see how annoying Monty is. Thus, they randomly don´t like each other.
A bit later, when the train robbery happens, they randomly change their minds (Monty especially) and begin their friendships. Or well, maybe it was not so random: Simon planned something to escape the police and it worked, that was all it took to gain Monty´s respect (I say randomly because truly, the plan was not impressive at all).
I could say more but, overall, this book needs more editing. I read reviews saying it was hard to stop reading this story but, for me, the opposite happened: It was hard to pick the story and read.
It drags for too long and, when the action happens, it´s not very believable.