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A review by yayforbooks
Dead to Me by Anton Strout
1.0
This book is Dead to Me.
I really wanted to like it at first, and then I just really wanted it to be done with. The premise of the story, that Simon Canderous is a man who can touch things and come up with a history for the object, is really cool. That was about it.
It really tried to be funny and I can accept the cheesy titles to pamphlets and job titles that abounded in this book. But it didn't work. It just felt much too juvenile of a narration. It's not even that I'm against first person narratives that are told with a lot of character. I actually like that. It just didn't work with Simon's voice because it was trying too hard. And all those cheesy pamphlet titles got old really really quickly.
The characters didn't have much depth. The plot was there, but it wasn't anything remarkable or very memorable. It just seemed like your standard urban fantasy mystery novel, which would have been fine if there had been more depth to the characters or more cohesiveness to the writing. Also, lines like "I shouldn't french with the enemy" just make me sigh. I almost fell asleep during the action scene.
I also felt like the female characters couldn't really stand on their own two feet in this book. I didn't get a sense of strength or independence from them. Which really annoyed me. I don't demand that every female character I read be utterly perfect, developed, or strong. I just ask that they don't randomly have mood swings when presented with balloons, write diary entries about their thongs while on a stake-out, and be interesting.
All in all, I did not like this book at all. Which is sad because I wanted to. If you want something that's also a contemporary urban fantasy with aspects of mystery and humorous narrator that works for some reason, I'd recommend the Dresden Files (starts with [b:Storm Front|47212|Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1)|Jim Butcher|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1345556917s/47212.jpg|1137060]) by Jim Butcher. Dead to Me really tried to be fun and funny and exciting, but I think it missed the mark.
I really wanted to like it at first, and then I just really wanted it to be done with. The premise of the story, that Simon Canderous is a man who can touch things and come up with a history for the object, is really cool. That was about it.
It really tried to be funny and I can accept the cheesy titles to pamphlets and job titles that abounded in this book. But it didn't work. It just felt much too juvenile of a narration. It's not even that I'm against first person narratives that are told with a lot of character. I actually like that. It just didn't work with Simon's voice because it was trying too hard. And all those cheesy pamphlet titles got old really really quickly.
The characters didn't have much depth. The plot was there, but it wasn't anything remarkable or very memorable. It just seemed like your standard urban fantasy mystery novel, which would have been fine if there had been more depth to the characters or more cohesiveness to the writing. Also, lines like "I shouldn't french with the enemy" just make me sigh. I almost fell asleep during the action scene.
I also felt like the female characters couldn't really stand on their own two feet in this book. I didn't get a sense of strength or independence from them. Which really annoyed me. I don't demand that every female character I read be utterly perfect, developed, or strong. I just ask that they don't randomly have mood swings when presented with balloons, write diary entries about their thongs while on a stake-out, and be interesting.
All in all, I did not like this book at all. Which is sad because I wanted to. If you want something that's also a contemporary urban fantasy with aspects of mystery and humorous narrator that works for some reason, I'd recommend the Dresden Files (starts with [b:Storm Front|47212|Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1)|Jim Butcher|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1345556917s/47212.jpg|1137060]) by Jim Butcher. Dead to Me really tried to be fun and funny and exciting, but I think it missed the mark.