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A review by iwb
In the Shadows of Men by Robert Jackson Bennett
dark
fast-paced
3.25
So, I liked the story. The themes are serious, disturbing, and important.
But one thing just really bothered me:
Told from the perspective of the main character.
So, the main character is an upper lower class/lower middle class blue collar worker; think someone who drives an F-150, has tools, with experience doing labor, installation, maybe even rigging, etc.
Someone like this from the South typically talks in a way that reflects that sort of life and experience. When the main character is engaging in dialogue, he basically comes off that way (though it could have been far more convincing than it was); but when the main character is narrating to himself and the reader, the language is way off the mark--it's stylistically inconsistent. Additionally, I kept stumbling over the narration because it annoyingly lacks contractions. No one talks this way, in their own head or to others. Even in the most academic of situations, in which one generally does not contract in formal writing, there is less of this than in the narration by the main character. The lack of contractions in the book made the reading so choppy.
I'm still going to check out other works by this author; but if we are similarly contraction deficient, I'll just call it a day.
But one thing just really bothered me:
Told from the perspective of the main character.
So, the main character is an upper lower class/lower middle class blue collar worker; think someone who drives an F-150, has tools, with experience doing labor, installation, maybe even rigging, etc.
Someone like this from the South typically talks in a way that reflects that sort of life and experience. When the main character is engaging in dialogue, he basically comes off that way (though it could have been far more convincing than it was); but when the main character is narrating to himself and the reader, the language is way off the mark--it's stylistically inconsistent. Additionally, I kept stumbling over the narration because it annoyingly lacks contractions. No one talks this way, in their own head or to others. Even in the most academic of situations, in which one generally does not contract in formal writing, there is less of this than in the narration by the main character. The lack of contractions in the book made the reading so choppy.
I'm still going to check out other works by this author; but if we are similarly contraction deficient, I'll just call it a day.