A review by nyctei
Wide Open by Deborah Coates
3.0
I'd say 3.5 stars is a good rating for this book. I rounded up to 4.
First the negative. There were some awkwardly worded and run on sentences. There was a lot of repetition at times. Boyd was often doing things unconsciously, or stopping because he realized he was doing something. Hallie was rubbing her eye or pressing her palm to her cheekbones a lot. Especially the left one for some reason.
Hallie says shit constantly. Often it is the entirety of her response. Her aunt arrives "shit". "Sorry about your sister." "Shit." etc etc. I don't have an issue with cursing but it seemed gratuitous or lazy at points. At least make it sound natural or mix it up.
That being said, I really didn't want to like Hallie, but she grew on me. As the story progressed she seemed to take on more character. Not so much through her words or thoughts but through her actions. She gets stuff done.
The story takes a while to pick up. At least for me, I was probably 70% in before I got to the can't-put-it-down stage. But it DID get there in the end. I even found myself starting to read the excerpt from the next book at the end and thinking "Oh Yay, it's Hallie." Also the book kept me guessing about some things. It leaves things vague but I like filling in the blanks. So that's not really a drawback to me but it may be to some.
First the negative. There were some awkwardly worded and run on sentences. There was a lot of repetition at times. Boyd was often doing things unconsciously, or stopping because he realized he was doing something. Hallie was rubbing her eye or pressing her palm to her cheekbones a lot. Especially the left one for some reason.
Hallie says shit constantly. Often it is the entirety of her response. Her aunt arrives "shit". "Sorry about your sister." "Shit." etc etc. I don't have an issue with cursing but it seemed gratuitous or lazy at points. At least make it sound natural or mix it up.
That being said, I really didn't want to like Hallie, but she grew on me. As the story progressed she seemed to take on more character. Not so much through her words or thoughts but through her actions. She gets stuff done.
The story takes a while to pick up. At least for me, I was probably 70% in before I got to the can't-put-it-down stage. But it DID get there in the end. I even found myself starting to read the excerpt from the next book at the end and thinking "Oh Yay, it's Hallie." Also the book kept me guessing about some things. It leaves things vague but I like filling in the blanks. So that's not really a drawback to me but it may be to some.