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A review by jasminenoack
Fated by S.G. Browne
4.0
okay so I picked this book up because it looked terrible. yeah no really that was my justification. I finished a book at work and didn't want to read the other book I had with me, so I went to the fiction section looked at the cart and picked up the stupidest looking book (well once you edit out the genre fiction on the cart. I mean it wasn't a nora roberts kind of moment.) The back of this book just terrible. the blurb sounds retarded and like the author had no idea what he was doing. the cover is stupid and cheesy (not unlike breathers in my personal opinion).
After all that you won't be surprised to hear I was shocked when the book was actually good. I thought it was well written and witty and just all kinds of awesome.
Now caris has a review of his other book that says that everything caris hates in his own writing was in the book. Now I'm bias cause I didn't hate caris' book, but I think there are some valid points that carry over to this book.
He does get a little stuck on catch phrases. I mean about a hundred pages in I was ready to throw the book across the room if he wrote "the thing about _______ is he's/she's a _______" I mean they are stupid extra words and it was funny the first well 2 times, tolerable he next 30 or so, then torture the rest of the time, except the last one, I liked that one. And just like caris says in his review (probably in reference to other matters) this feels to me like a poor imitation of palahniuk. I know I know palahniuk only writes one character, whatever people I know you aren't into it. At one point when I was reading interviews by palahniuk there was one about how to write it talked about knowing your character. This included knowing the kinds of things that your character says. So for him in the book choke he talks about code red and code blue etc. and sex things. This is even as literal as if I was a character in a book there are phrases I use all the time "Depressing." "Not really no." "I don't like points they're sharp." that I say, but here is the thing there are lots of characteristic phrases and different wordings of those phrasings I mean as a character I wouldn't say only "depressing." sometimes I'd say "Sad." or "stupid." There is variety, unless you are retard with no vocabulary. This lack of meaningful variation it's annoying.
I don't mind the characters awkwardness in this book. But I not having read the other book I would say it's still there. This is very much a book about a stupid guy and he's a stupid guy who knows he's a stupid guy. I don't mind this in my book some people do, if you are one of those people this is not the book for you.
I also thought there was a chance the personification was going a bit far I mean I don't know that it is necessary to have a personification of every fucking adjective. I do like the fact that a lot of them went by other names, and you aren't actually told who josh is for a while, although you will guess before the actual moment, unless I missed an earlier revelation.
I'm on the verge of talking myself down a star, so I'm just going to say this was one of the most enjoyable books I read all year and for a while I thought it was going to be the first 5 star book of the year. I fully intend to read breathers now even though I think he cover is stupid.
After all that you won't be surprised to hear I was shocked when the book was actually good. I thought it was well written and witty and just all kinds of awesome.
Now caris has a review of his other book that says that everything caris hates in his own writing was in the book. Now I'm bias cause I didn't hate caris' book, but I think there are some valid points that carry over to this book.
He does get a little stuck on catch phrases. I mean about a hundred pages in I was ready to throw the book across the room if he wrote "the thing about _______ is he's/she's a _______" I mean they are stupid extra words and it was funny the first well 2 times, tolerable he next 30 or so, then torture the rest of the time, except the last one, I liked that one. And just like caris says in his review (probably in reference to other matters) this feels to me like a poor imitation of palahniuk. I know I know palahniuk only writes one character, whatever people I know you aren't into it. At one point when I was reading interviews by palahniuk there was one about how to write it talked about knowing your character. This included knowing the kinds of things that your character says. So for him in the book choke he talks about code red and code blue etc. and sex things. This is even as literal as if I was a character in a book there are phrases I use all the time "Depressing." "Not really no." "I don't like points they're sharp." that I say, but here is the thing there are lots of characteristic phrases and different wordings of those phrasings I mean as a character I wouldn't say only "depressing." sometimes I'd say "Sad." or "stupid." There is variety, unless you are retard with no vocabulary. This lack of meaningful variation it's annoying.
I don't mind the characters awkwardness in this book. But I not having read the other book I would say it's still there. This is very much a book about a stupid guy and he's a stupid guy who knows he's a stupid guy. I don't mind this in my book some people do, if you are one of those people this is not the book for you.
I also thought there was a chance the personification was going a bit far I mean I don't know that it is necessary to have a personification of every fucking adjective. I do like the fact that a lot of them went by other names, and you aren't actually told who josh is for a while, although you will guess before the actual moment, unless I missed an earlier revelation.
I'm on the verge of talking myself down a star, so I'm just going to say this was one of the most enjoyable books I read all year and for a while I thought it was going to be the first 5 star book of the year. I fully intend to read breathers now even though I think he cover is stupid.