bxermom's review against another edition
2.0
Sloooow in the beginning and ruuuuushed at the end. UGH!
orangerful's review against another edition
3.0
Mature end of YA. Not my favorite Abrahams books but solid writing throughout. The blurb on the front said it was a "potboiler" and I didn't really understand the term until I finished the book. I don't think I'm into that style of mystery.
quietjenn's review against another edition
2.0
entertaining enough, but no great shakes. (which is to say, perhaps, please write another echo falls book.) there's actually a lot here i liked, *but* the ending - how it was paced, i.e. super rushed - kinda ruined the overall.
jeannemurray3gmailcom's review against another edition
1.0
Not very good. At times, it seemed it was going somewhere, and then things happen that just don't make sense. I believe the main problem was character development. I felt like I would know a character, but then the author would change them. I didn't like this book.
libscote's review against another edition
2.0
For someone who has written pretty good female characters in the past, I was really disappointed with this book.
kaje_harper's review against another edition
3.0
This is a good young-adult mystery/coming of age story. Wyatt's biological dad has been serving a life sentence since before Wyatt was born. When circumstances force Wyatt to move to a new town he suddenly is aware of the prison, and his father, right there within reach. He hooks up with a girl whose father is also in prison. His new girlfriend claims both men are innocent. Wyatt's curiosity and growing desire to understand both himself and the role his mother may have played in the crime, push him to investigate.
The plot of this book is well written, with surprising turns, and a climax that is unexpected and yet works with the characters and story. A few details are questionable. For example, the father, (who was a young, good-looking guy with no ties to any gang or power structure, and no one to send him money from outside when incarcerated), seems to have a lot of power and leeway in the prison. And the best friend Dub just disappears from the story half-way through the book. But in general the story-line works.
What makes this a good book, and not a great one, is that the story after the climax wraps up in an unemotional page and a half. This is where the real emotional work of the story would have happened. Wyatt's relationship with his mother and stepfather, the revelations about his dad and all the questions about how much the man changed in prison (or didn't), the things that happened with Wyatt's girlfriend - all of those would keep a therapist or an introspective narrator busy for months. It feels almost like a cheat to have no insight into how Wyatt feels or handles it all beyond the simple line that "inside he felt like he deserved much worse". So... a good light-weight mystery/thriller story, but not one of the YA that let you get deep inside the main character and reread for the emotional punch.
The plot of this book is well written, with surprising turns, and a climax that is unexpected and yet works with the characters and story. A few details are questionable. For example, the father, (who was a young, good-looking guy with no ties to any gang or power structure, and no one to send him money from outside when incarcerated), seems to have a lot of power and leeway in the prison. And the best friend Dub just disappears from the story half-way through the book. But in general the story-line works.
What makes this a good book, and not a great one, is that the story after the climax wraps up in an unemotional page and a half. This is where the real emotional work of the story would have happened. Wyatt's relationship with his mother and stepfather, the revelations about his dad and all the questions about how much the man changed in prison (or didn't), the things that happened with Wyatt's girlfriend - all of those would keep a therapist or an introspective narrator busy for months. It feels almost like a cheat to have no insight into how Wyatt feels or handles it all beyond the simple line that "inside he felt like he deserved much worse". So... a good light-weight mystery/thriller story, but not one of the YA that let you get deep inside the main character and reread for the emotional punch.
crystal_deornellas's review
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
sentunderscore's review against another edition
i DNFd this at 40 pages. there were many things about the way this was written that i wasn't enjoying. mainly being that the dialogue was very unnatural and the intelligence of the main character was very off.
wheems01's review
2.0
When his home town of East Canton cuts funding to the school and Wyatt’s high school stops offering baseball and all other extra curriculars, Wyatt sets off for Silver City with the hopes of being able to play ball again. While there he meets an intriguing girl, Greer, who has met his father in the prison nearby. After talking to Greer Wyatt begins to believe that his father wasn’t guilty of the crimes he was imprisoned for, and begins to investigate. What he finds will change his life forever.
Poor reviews are rare for me. This is because I rarely finish a book I don’t like. When I realize that I am not going to like a book, I will put it down, and usually don’t get back to it. When that happens the book doesn’t get reviewed because I believe that I have to finish a book in order to accurately review it. On occasion though, there are those books that I have made a commitment to read. Books that I must finish regardless of how I feel about them. This was one of those books.
I don’t know exactly what it was about this book that made me first suspect that it wasn’t for me. Perhaps it was the characters, not their development of course, but the fact that I was frustrated by their actions and eventually I lost the ability to care what happened to them. Greer frustrated me most of all because she was so moody. In the end I was just happy to have finished this one so I could cross it off my list.
I have read other books by Peter Abrahams, and I was looking forward to reading this one. I enjoyed the mystery he created in Reality Check and hoped to find something similar in this novel. What I found in Bullet Point was less a mystery and more a tale of self-discovery and self-destruction. Wyatt goes looking for his father to prove that his father was innocent, and ends up finding more out about himself.
Without giving away the story and the mystery it is hard for me to say what I exactly didn’t like, but I will give it a try. I didn’t like that I couldn’t feel anything for the characters in this novel except being frustrated by their actions. I didn’t like the lying in the novel, because it felt like every page was coated with a lie or a half-truth. I didn’t like the pacing of the novel, because I felt like it was dragging on and on. I didn’t like the fact that Greer and Wyatt hop into bed at the drop of the hat, sometimes without resolving issues with their relationship first.
I did listen to this book in audio format. The audiobook is produced by Recorded Books and is narrated by Rich Orlow. Orlow does an excellent job narrating the book and keeping the reader engaged. This is one of those books that I might not have finished if it weren’t for the audio.
Abraham’s is a talented author. As I said before I have read other things by him that I really enjoyed. It isn’t the skill of the writer that I find fault with. This story is well executed, and extremely well written. Perhaps the ultimate fault lies with me as the reader. I can’t accept the characters as they are and I wanted so much more from them.
Overall, this story will appeal to male mystery fans who like their stories a little on the gritty side. Unfortunately, this reviewer is not one to fall into that category. I look forward to seeing what Abraham’s writes next, I hope it is more like Reality Check or even his Echo Falls novels rather than this one.
Cautions for sensitive readers: Language, Sex, Violence.
libscote's review
2.0
For someone who has written pretty good female characters in the past, I was really disappointed with this book.