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A review by kalkn
The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North
1.0
It's hard to think of something that I liked about this book. So, nothing for that category this time around.
What I didn't like
The story - the premise was interesting. A man is cursed with death following him around. But, the way the story was executed was awful. William is cursed, not because he did anything wrong, he just didn't do the right thing at the right time. The ultimate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The entire story is just snippets of him telling the sister of being on the run. There's only so many ways you can tell the same story over and over and over and over and over. The author blows past this limit and continues to tell it over and over. The story starts bad and just gets worse with each turned page.
The length - this easily could've been a novella or short story. The book, as is, is about 400 pages too long. Like I mention above, it's the story of a man on the run. You can only read about the same thing before it gets repetitive. The chase gets old after hearing about it only a couple of times. Unfortunately, there's still 400 pages to go.
The language - there's swearing throughout the book for swearing sake. It takes the reader out of the story. It's like the author had a quota she had to fill of f-words and just throws them in the story to meet that quota. Really distracting.
Lack of punctuation - the only thing I can think of is the "." on the author's keyboard must be broken. I get why she did what she did, trying to portray the unstructured madness of hearing everyone's truth. But, there reaches a point where it's interrupting the story, making it hard to follow along and keep up. When you spend more time out of the story, trying to make heads or tales of it, you know you have a problem. It's an even bigger problem when you still have 400 pages to go.
The magic system - the magic system makes absolutely no sense and leaves the reader scratching their head trying to understand it. Everyone can curse except the American's and Western Europeans. The curse is stuck with you until the story needs it to move to other people. Not only that, but it can be transferred repeatedly. No explanation. How it happens or how it can be removed, no answer. If this is something the majority of the world can do, the magic system would have a larger influence on society, instead, most people don't know about it or care about until their character needs to. Some characters says the curse is a blessing, but no examples are giving. Those who call it a blessing are left looking like they are delusional.
What I didn't like
The story - the premise was interesting. A man is cursed with death following him around. But, the way the story was executed was awful. William is cursed, not because he did anything wrong, he just didn't do the right thing at the right time. The ultimate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The entire story is just snippets of him telling the sister of being on the run. There's only so many ways you can tell the same story over and over and over and over and over. The author blows past this limit and continues to tell it over and over. The story starts bad and just gets worse with each turned page.
The length - this easily could've been a novella or short story. The book, as is, is about 400 pages too long. Like I mention above, it's the story of a man on the run. You can only read about the same thing before it gets repetitive. The chase gets old after hearing about it only a couple of times. Unfortunately, there's still 400 pages to go.
The language - there's swearing throughout the book for swearing sake. It takes the reader out of the story. It's like the author had a quota she had to fill of f-words and just throws them in the story to meet that quota. Really distracting.
Lack of punctuation - the only thing I can think of is the "." on the author's keyboard must be broken. I get why she did what she did, trying to portray the unstructured madness of hearing everyone's truth. But, there reaches a point where it's interrupting the story, making it hard to follow along and keep up. When you spend more time out of the story, trying to make heads or tales of it, you know you have a problem. It's an even bigger problem when you still have 400 pages to go.
The magic system - the magic system makes absolutely no sense and leaves the reader scratching their head trying to understand it. Everyone can curse except the American's and Western Europeans. The curse is stuck with you until the story needs it to move to other people. Not only that, but it can be transferred repeatedly. No explanation. How it happens or how it can be removed, no answer. If this is something the majority of the world can do, the magic system would have a larger influence on society, instead, most people don't know about it or care about until their character needs to. Some characters says the curse is a blessing, but no examples are giving. Those who call it a blessing are left looking like they are delusional.