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A review by jemofabook
Lost On A Page by David E. Sharp
2.0
Rating: Not for Me/Alright
Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for the eARC of Lost on a Page in return for my honest opinions.
This book was a bit of a gamble. The premise is one that I think is really cool, but the execution just fell a bit flat for me. Essentially, the book follows a group of fantasy characters whose author created in his current WIP a library that has every book ever written or being written. This includes their own books. Realizing that they are actually fictional characters gives these characters self-realization and allows them freedom of decisions unencumbered by their author's wishes. Their desire is to escape from the world of books and to confront their author for everything that he has put them through. They enlist the help of a mystery detective and then set about collecting things that they need to escape the world of books from other books that are currently being written, causing chaos amongst the authors whose books and characters they hijack.
I thought that this premise was fantastic. It's a lot of fun; however, it is one that I think would take a lot to not come off as slightly cheesy. Something that I did really enjoy was that we get the correspondence of authors with each other and their editors as they are trying to figure out what is going on as their stories keep changing. Then they are teaming up against their characters and sometimes with their characters to make certain events come about. So those interludes were pretty fun.
I also think that these interludes allowed for some addressing of larger themes of what does it mean to be alive/human and what the value of life is. I would have liked for these ideas and conversations between the authors to be fleshed out more fully, but I do appreciate that they were touched on. It made it feel like there was a larger meaning to the story than just something fun and silly.
Honestly, I think that this story and concept would make a really interesting TV show. We don't really spend much time (if any) in the fantasy novel, but we have a bunch of fantasy characters, and we go through mystery, romance, sci-fi, and apocalyptic/horror genres. I think that if this were being done via film or television, it would have made for much more enjoyable interludes in each genre. Unfortunately, for me, the way that is written just came across as parodies of each genre. It felt very cheesy and almost like it was supposed to be a joke; however, there was no bigger punchline or reason for it to be a parody, which just made it awkward and hard to read for me personally.
The characters were very flat and two-dimensional. They were all very cliched archetypes of their genres, and they didn't have much personality that allowed me to connect to them. I also had a difficult time with the way the romance genre and heroine was portrayed. The authors of the fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi genres are all men and they all end up working together. The horror author never responds to their attempts to contact him, but he is a man. Then the romance author is portrayed as very aloof and snotty and does not join them or attempt to help them in any way. She is also the only female author. It's very small, but it did bother me. It didn't help that there were female protagonists and supporting characters in the stories within this book bc they were so flat.
Overall, this book was a miss for me, but the concept is still one that I am intrigued by and would 100% watch if it were turned into film/television. I think that if people were looking for something that is purely a silly nod to a bunch of different genre archetypes and tropes, this may be something that they would enjoy. I think it could especially appeal to a younger audience.
Lost on a Page releases July 1, 2021.
Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for the eARC of Lost on a Page in return for my honest opinions.
This book was a bit of a gamble. The premise is one that I think is really cool, but the execution just fell a bit flat for me. Essentially, the book follows a group of fantasy characters whose author created in his current WIP a library that has every book ever written or being written. This includes their own books. Realizing that they are actually fictional characters gives these characters self-realization and allows them freedom of decisions unencumbered by their author's wishes. Their desire is to escape from the world of books and to confront their author for everything that he has put them through. They enlist the help of a mystery detective and then set about collecting things that they need to escape the world of books from other books that are currently being written, causing chaos amongst the authors whose books and characters they hijack.
I thought that this premise was fantastic. It's a lot of fun; however, it is one that I think would take a lot to not come off as slightly cheesy. Something that I did really enjoy was that we get the correspondence of authors with each other and their editors as they are trying to figure out what is going on as their stories keep changing. Then they are teaming up against their characters and sometimes with their characters to make certain events come about. So those interludes were pretty fun.
I also think that these interludes allowed for some addressing of larger themes of what does it mean to be alive/human and what the value of life is. I would have liked for these ideas and conversations between the authors to be fleshed out more fully, but I do appreciate that they were touched on. It made it feel like there was a larger meaning to the story than just something fun and silly.
Honestly, I think that this story and concept would make a really interesting TV show. We don't really spend much time (if any) in the fantasy novel, but we have a bunch of fantasy characters, and we go through mystery, romance, sci-fi, and apocalyptic/horror genres. I think that if this were being done via film or television, it would have made for much more enjoyable interludes in each genre. Unfortunately, for me, the way that is written just came across as parodies of each genre. It felt very cheesy and almost like it was supposed to be a joke; however, there was no bigger punchline or reason for it to be a parody, which just made it awkward and hard to read for me personally.
The characters were very flat and two-dimensional. They were all very cliched archetypes of their genres, and they didn't have much personality that allowed me to connect to them. I also had a difficult time with the way the romance genre and heroine was portrayed. The authors of the fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi genres are all men and they all end up working together. The horror author never responds to their attempts to contact him, but he is a man. Then the romance author is portrayed as very aloof and snotty and does not join them or attempt to help them in any way. She is also the only female author. It's very small, but it did bother me. It didn't help that there were female protagonists and supporting characters in the stories within this book bc they were so flat.
Overall, this book was a miss for me, but the concept is still one that I am intrigued by and would 100% watch if it were turned into film/television. I think that if people were looking for something that is purely a silly nod to a bunch of different genre archetypes and tropes, this may be something that they would enjoy. I think it could especially appeal to a younger audience.
Lost on a Page releases July 1, 2021.