A review by ashleylm
The Road to Ever After by Moira Young
2.0
A frustrating blend of lovely and incompetent writing (whether through ignorance, or deliberate bad choices, it's hard to tell).
Others have sung its praises, so I'll focus on what bothered me.
Unbelievable, inconsistent characters, who don't behave the way humans behave. This is sometimes acceptable (say, in a fairy tale, or very stylized picture book) but in a novel I expect some semblance of reality. Almost every single character, no matter how big or small, ended up overacting to some extent.
Unbelievable, unacceptable plot contrivances, like a 13 year old who has never driven before (or even been in a car, given his circumstances) magically knowing how to drive a motorcycle, for God's sake.
Unnecessary, pointless, unexplained passages--the first 70 pages is essentially filler--just such a waste.
This irritated me to no end. It felt like the author was aiming for some beautifully-written touching evocation of Peter S. Beagle and Ray Bradbury, and they got the Smaller Dumpling Amateur Theatrical Society's presentation of the director's 8 year old's dramatization of War and Peace instead. It's just so far off the mark.
(I was this close to stopping reading, but I had to wonder if anything paid off eventually--maybe the main character, say, turned out to be in a video game and that's why he could magically do everything, and why the NPCs were so unconvincing, etc., but no.)
Not for me.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
Others have sung its praises, so I'll focus on what bothered me.
Unbelievable, inconsistent characters, who don't behave the way humans behave. This is sometimes acceptable (say, in a fairy tale, or very stylized picture book) but in a novel I expect some semblance of reality. Almost every single character, no matter how big or small, ended up overacting to some extent.
Unbelievable, unacceptable plot contrivances, like a 13 year old who has never driven before (or even been in a car, given his circumstances) magically knowing how to drive a motorcycle, for God's sake.
Unnecessary, pointless, unexplained passages--the first 70 pages is essentially filler--just such a waste.
This irritated me to no end. It felt like the author was aiming for some beautifully-written touching evocation of Peter S. Beagle and Ray Bradbury, and they got the Smaller Dumpling Amateur Theatrical Society's presentation of the director's 8 year old's dramatization of War and Peace instead. It's just so far off the mark.
(I was this close to stopping reading, but I had to wonder if anything paid off eventually--maybe the main character, say, turned out to be in a video game and that's why he could magically do everything, and why the NPCs were so unconvincing, etc., but no.)
Not for me.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).