A review by cristine
The Eleventh Hour by Anina Collins

1.0

Wow, this book is so bad!!! I feel bad to say this but besides it being 100% predictable from the start and everything that happens throughout you've seen in every B rated mystery, it is so badly written. From the editing, to the "character development", to the story, to the absolute ridiculousness of the entire thing.... Where should I start? The editing... Did anyone actually edit this novel? There are so many stupid mistakes and typos it's as though it never made it to editing and went straight to print. Here are just a few examples because there are too many to list: "Maybe it a ring?" instead of it was or it is; "Mrs. Joseph Scanlon, whose first name I had never..." and in the next sentence uses the wrong name "Married to James Scanlon for nearly forty years"...Really what happened to Mrs. Joseph..? Next: "but then what she’d said about the former mayor hit me light a bolt of lightning". Errr, don't you mean LIKE a bolt of lightning? Then: "I like this look on your, Poppy" instead of on you, Poppy. Then: "Everyone texts and emails anymore" - um what? "I saw the same handwriting on note right on his desk" errr on a note or the note. OK you get the point right? RIDICULOUS! As for the story, it sounded like a plot geared more towards little kids. Poppy is truly the most annoying character that has ever appeared in a novel. The idea is for her to come across as intelligent and ambitious but she is actually not intelligent and is simply foolish and whiney. There were so many pointless dialogues between her and her father, her and her friend, Bethany, which I guess was to create some character development but it was beyond pointless and so irrelevant. There is a part where the dialogue between I think her and Bethany is literally a summary of what occurred in a previous portion of the book. It could have been easily summer up "I explained to Bethany everything that happened bla bla bla". Poppy's idiotic tantrums of wahhh everyone has an opinion of me in a small town or wahhh how dare the detective tell me it was safer for me not to come along to a murder investigation down to the scene with the murderer where she literally said to stop bashing women and was upset that the town would believe a reputable detective over her idiot self while a gun is pointed at them, were so absolutely stupid. I mean, really, so ridiculous. Oh yea and how about her letting the murderer into the house because oh, she couldn't recognize the voice from someone else. Wow! Oh wait, let's not forget just how amazing Alex's eyes are. You know how you know this? Because it's mentioned a thousand times in the novel which makes it truly sound like a teenager is the main character and this book was written for or by a teenager...his dreamy brown eyes, his deep brown eyes, those big brown eyes, those mysterious brown eyes, his amazing brown eyes.. OMG....I don't think I've ever hated a character so much in a novel as I did Poppy. All her little outbursts when Alex is trying to do his job as an actual investigator make Poppy appear as a weak, whiney, erratic child, instead of an intelligent, focused, woman with good instincts as she allegedly was to have. Man, I can go on and on but I never want to think of this book again. I only finished it to satisfy one of the last prompts on my reading challenge list. I don't think this is considered a YA series from what I could find but if this is geared towards adults and adults actually like this then I have to assume there is a certain audience for this type of novel and I definitely am not it. Glad other people are able to get passed the poor writing and like it.