see_sadie_read's review
2.0
Awesome cover, interesting idea, but not well executed. I generally hate the dictum to show not tell. I think it's overused as a critique. But there is no getting around the fact that stories that are predominantly written in 'tell' are harder to connect to. Sometimes there are enough other elements to overcome this, usually there isn't. Here, in 12 Hours of Daylight, being a novella, there is almost nothing. Which means I never felt connected to Jason and we're not given any other characters to even try getting to know. Even at the point where Jason needs advice, he calls in an old friend that the reader doesn't know, who then basically disappears again.
All this combined with the stiff dialogue (names are used far too often) creates a story that feels like it's being blandly recited, with Jason's porn gigs functioning as an excuse for some menage type sex scenes that contribute little to the already thin plot, spicing things up. There is a minor upheaval and then everything miraculously fixes itself off-page and the reader is told about it after the fact.
All in all, I think this really could have been something special. As is, it's not bad. I liked the inter-racial aspect of the relationships. I liked the narrative voice. But I think it needs a lot more to really catch a readers attention.
Note: I won this through Goodreads.
All this combined with the stiff dialogue (names are used far too often) creates a story that feels like it's being blandly recited, with Jason's porn gigs functioning as an excuse for some menage type sex scenes that contribute little to the already thin plot, spicing things up. There is a minor upheaval and then everything miraculously fixes itself off-page and the reader is told about it after the fact.
All in all, I think this really could have been something special. As is, it's not bad. I liked the inter-racial aspect of the relationships. I liked the narrative voice. But I think it needs a lot more to really catch a readers attention.
Note: I won this through Goodreads.
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