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A review by kirsty147
Sacrifice by Paul Finch
3.0
(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways)
I feel life's too short to read books that irk me so I tend to ditch them if I still feel that way 100 pages in.
I'm at page 105 and much as I want to like this book, I just can't go on.
Perhaps I should not have read that Paul Finch used to be a writer for The Bill because I think that may have set my expectations way too high.
I know his first book, and indeed this book, have received good reviews from readers but to me it just felt like writing by numbers.
When a major new character is introduced we're given a physical description (more often than not) and it makes it feel clunky and amateurish.
It's also very descriptive in places, unnaturally so. It reminded me of setting a scene on stage or on TV and it doesn't come over well in the written medium.
I feel he's left it too long to return to characters introduced in the very beginning - so much so that I've forgotten what happened 100 pages back. Maybe there's some clever joining of the dots towards the middle and I'll miss out on something fantastic, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.
One other small, entirely personal point, is the protagonist's shortened name - Heck.
It irritated me and I can't decide why. Maybe a small part of it was that I kept wanting to say (being a northerner) "Oh heck, Heck" :-D
I feel life's too short to read books that irk me so I tend to ditch them if I still feel that way 100 pages in.
I'm at page 105 and much as I want to like this book, I just can't go on.
Perhaps I should not have read that Paul Finch used to be a writer for The Bill because I think that may have set my expectations way too high.
I know his first book, and indeed this book, have received good reviews from readers but to me it just felt like writing by numbers.
When a major new character is introduced we're given a physical description (more often than not) and it makes it feel clunky and amateurish.
It's also very descriptive in places, unnaturally so. It reminded me of setting a scene on stage or on TV and it doesn't come over well in the written medium.
I feel he's left it too long to return to characters introduced in the very beginning - so much so that I've forgotten what happened 100 pages back. Maybe there's some clever joining of the dots towards the middle and I'll miss out on something fantastic, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.
One other small, entirely personal point, is the protagonist's shortened name - Heck.
It irritated me and I can't decide why. Maybe a small part of it was that I kept wanting to say (being a northerner) "Oh heck, Heck" :-D