A review by ashleyg101
Dead River by Cyn Balog
2.0
The first thing you will want to know about Dead River is the protagonist’s name. I don’t know if I missed it, but everyone refers to her as “Ki” and it was driving me insane not knowing what her full name was. It’s Kiandra. Now for the storyline: Kiandra, her long-term boyfriend Justin, her best friend and cousin Angela, and some annoying guy Hugo all go to Angela’s family’s cabin at Dead River to go rafting. Kiandra has to lie to her father in order to go as he hates her being anywhere near water since her mother killed herself when she was seven. Once at the cabin, Kiandra realizes that the voices she used to hear as a child have returned once she gets near the river, and she spends a lot of time trying to look like she’s not crazy as these whispers fill her head. Soon after arriving, she realizes that her mother’s suicide might not have been as black and white as she has seen it, and that the whispers aren’t the result of her losing her sanity, but real.
This book had a lot of good points and a lot of bad points. Kiandra hates being outdoors. She wanted to go to prom, but for some reason, could not let her boyfriend of three years know this, so she spends a lot of time internally whining about everything having to do with nature. The first half of the book is repetitive – Kiandra hating being at Dead River, hearing whispers and not knowing what they mean, complaining about being cold, and generally being a total buzzkill. The second half of the book finally introduces the point of the book and the extended plotline, but it’s too little, too late. I mean that literally – I was reading and turning pages and realizing there were a lot of unanswered questions and not many pages left. There are some “mysteries” that are brought up, and then never mentioned again. Kiandra finds out certain things about herself, but the descriptions are confusing, and aren’t consistent. By the time I was really nearing the end of the book, I was sure there was a sequel. No one likes it when authors unnecessarily draw out a story simply to make it into a trilogy, but this book either needed to be longer, have a sequel, or spend more time on the complex parts and less time on Kiandra being a whiny high school student.
It’s a short book and a quick read, so I’m not sure why there are several extraneous characters that don’t need to be in the book. One of the characters seems to be a major character with a great mystery, but that just fizzles out and you wonder why he was there in the first place. The climactic scene was also disappointing simply because it wasn’t explained. You’re left thinking, “Wait…what? Can that happen? I didn’t think…” I do think I would recommend this book because it takes a spin on the paranormal that I haven’t seen before. Parts of the story are unique, but it’s disappointing to see how little elaboration is put into them. I would be interested in reading one of the author’s other books to see how the creativity compares to the writing style/plotline development compare to this book. http://cynbalog.blogspot.com/
This book had a lot of good points and a lot of bad points. Kiandra hates being outdoors. She wanted to go to prom, but for some reason, could not let her boyfriend of three years know this, so she spends a lot of time internally whining about everything having to do with nature. The first half of the book is repetitive – Kiandra hating being at Dead River, hearing whispers and not knowing what they mean, complaining about being cold, and generally being a total buzzkill. The second half of the book finally introduces the point of the book and the extended plotline, but it’s too little, too late. I mean that literally – I was reading and turning pages and realizing there were a lot of unanswered questions and not many pages left. There are some “mysteries” that are brought up, and then never mentioned again. Kiandra finds out certain things about herself, but the descriptions are confusing, and aren’t consistent. By the time I was really nearing the end of the book, I was sure there was a sequel. No one likes it when authors unnecessarily draw out a story simply to make it into a trilogy, but this book either needed to be longer, have a sequel, or spend more time on the complex parts and less time on Kiandra being a whiny high school student.
It’s a short book and a quick read, so I’m not sure why there are several extraneous characters that don’t need to be in the book. One of the characters seems to be a major character with a great mystery, but that just fizzles out and you wonder why he was there in the first place. The climactic scene was also disappointing simply because it wasn’t explained. You’re left thinking, “Wait…what? Can that happen? I didn’t think…” I do think I would recommend this book because it takes a spin on the paranormal that I haven’t seen before. Parts of the story are unique, but it’s disappointing to see how little elaboration is put into them. I would be interested in reading one of the author’s other books to see how the creativity compares to the writing style/plotline development compare to this book. http://cynbalog.blogspot.com/