A review by ericadawson
The Enemy by Charlie Higson

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I was hoping to enjoy this more than I did. Writing style was choppy, stilted, and plain. I can't count the number of times I had to force myself not to count how many words were in each sentence. The gree tedious early on in the book and remained so throughout.

There were too many characters. Arran Maxie blue Whitney Sam Ollie Jasper Ella this that and third. For this reason, I felt like I couldn't actually care about any of them. Maxie was really the only one I could keep track of, the only one whom I cared even a little if she got hurt or lived or died. Constant PoV changes/3rd person omniscient writing felt all over the place.

There's a minimum of two sideplots in this story that, from what I remember, don't directly connect to the main plot. It's not necessarily that they needed to, but that they didn't hold much weight on their own.

It's been said that British authors have a meanspirited voice in their writing. I'd dismissed it as exaggeration til I read this. The people who say this are right. I think the sense of meanspiritedness comes from physical appearance always being tied to morality or value somehow, at least in this book. If the character was fat or big they were bad, evil, disgusting, mean, aggressive, etc. it made for unpleasant reading when I had to go through yet another "X grownup was bald and fat and ugly (because he was fat)". 
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