Two DNF books: Empire Day, A Place to Run Free

[thistlechaser]

DNF

6) A Place to Run Free by Michael Lareaux. I struggled so long with this book. I didn't enjoy it from the beginning, but I kept forcing myself to read thinking I really should like this story.

The main character (Jake), an 11 year old boy, was a complete brat. I couldn't stand spending time with him. He dies early on and ends up in dog heaven. This should have been such an amazing, wonderful story, but the writing was just so meandering and verbose. If the book had been tighter, if it had been edited to be half as long, I think it might have been a much better story.

After dog heavens, Jake finds cat heaven, horse heaven, and zoo animal heaven. I liked the idea of the afterlives and how the animals were handled, but the writing was just such a chore to get through. And again, every moment I spent with Jake I hated him more and more (as distasteful as it is to hate an 11 year old kid).

I spent four days reading this, forcing myself to the 50% point before giving up. I wish I had DNFed it from the beginning and moved on to something else.

7) Empire Day (New England Book 1) by James Philip. Typical self-published book. Multiple editing issues per paragraph. I didn't get more than a few pages into the story, so I can't even cover what it was about. Mr. Philip needs to learn how to use punctuation in general, as well as the difference between commas, semicolons, and em dashes.

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

James Philip has bursts of coherent writing, mixed with horrible passages of banality or disgusting archaic views.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I was amazed to see this series is 10+ books long. I figured the later ones might have gotten better (though I sure as heck wasn't going to push through and find out). From what little I read of this one, "disgusting archaic views" would fit perfectly, yep.