Title: Confessions of a Murder Suspect
Author: James Patterson
Series: #1 - Confessions
Format: Hardback
Release Date: August 28th, 2012
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
Author: James Patterson
Series: #1 - Confessions
Format: Hardback
Release Date: August 28th, 2012
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
James Patterson returns to the genre that made him famous with a thrilling teen detective series about the mysterious and magnificently wealthy Angel family... and the dark secrets they're keeping from one another.
On the night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, Tandy Angel knows just three things: She was the last person to see her parents alive. The police have no suspects besides Tandy and her three siblings. She can't trust anyone -— maybe not even herself.
Having grown up under Malcolm and Maud's intense perfectionist demands, no child comes away undamaged. Tandy decides that she will have to clear the family name, but digging deeper into her powerful parents' affairs is a dangerous -- and revealing -- game. Who knows what the Angels are truly capable of?
On the night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, Tandy Angel knows just three things: She was the last person to see her parents alive. The police have no suspects besides Tandy and her three siblings. She can't trust anyone -— maybe not even herself.
Having grown up under Malcolm and Maud's intense perfectionist demands, no child comes away undamaged. Tandy decides that she will have to clear the family name, but digging deeper into her powerful parents' affairs is a dangerous -- and revealing -- game. Who knows what the Angels are truly capable of?
My Review:
So I just got done review one of my favorite Authors and now I am going to do one in which the name is so large that I expected a lot out of this book. However at the end of the first fifty pages I already knew what I was going to rate this book. I was in utter shock of how almost amateur this book was. I'll start with everything wrong with this book.
1. Addressing the reader. This is an absolute no no. There are better ways get the reader involved than trying to communicate with them. "Dear Reader" just turned me off completely, and while that mechanic may be good younger readers. However doing it just flat out deflated the story, and grind on the reader more than it helps.
2. Telling the reader. So this goes back to one and the best quote to show this is, "And it might not surprise you at this point to learn that I can actually read Chinese." Why is this bad? Show the reader she knows how to read chinese, instead of just magically learning chinese out of nowhere. It's silly, disjointed and frankly why doesn't she use it prior to telling the reader? It's flat out silly, makes the story hard to understand and follow through the laughter.
3. Tangents. Tandy goes off on all these tangents or flashbacks to explain something to the reader again, than randomly stop in the middle of them and explain that you'll save them for later. It was a few pages of this that drove me crazy and I actually started skipping the useless information. Stop throwing the reader promises, and frankly I didn't feel like some of those even came about.
4. Innuendos. Okay Innuendos are fun and all, but if you don't do them correctly or leak in your own prejudices or make the reader question the innuendo. There were names in the book and the one that stood out was a TV anchor Imbimbo, break it apart and you will question what he has against anchors. Its so easy to see and confusing. Pick a regular name and stop it. It's not funny, it doesn't add anything to the story at all.
Future writers, please take note of the list and learn from why this book just doesn't do good at all. Add to that the lack emotion in the main character. She's a rag doll that just randomly moves around. There's no attachment to her at all, and in fact she's just hard to connect with.
I didn't want to jump to a rating based on the ending, so in my search of other perspectives on the ending (from other reviewers), I've found that too many think it's just a complete letdown. Yeah, I will say that I didn't expect it, I saw it coming near the end, but frankly I didn't even think the ending was on the table. It was such a letdown I'm not even sure if I am going to read the sequel.
This is a prime example of what not to do when writing a book. There was just so much wrong with the book that frankly I am afraid to read anything else. How can an author so prolific as this pour effort and time into a book and it just be viewed as a complete waste of time. Frankly I hope someone out there enjoyed this book, but I don't see who or why they would... I thought the book was just so dry, the style done wrong or detracted from the story, and the main character was so uneventful.
1. Addressing the reader. This is an absolute no no. There are better ways get the reader involved than trying to communicate with them. "Dear Reader" just turned me off completely, and while that mechanic may be good younger readers. However doing it just flat out deflated the story, and grind on the reader more than it helps.
2. Telling the reader. So this goes back to one and the best quote to show this is, "And it might not surprise you at this point to learn that I can actually read Chinese." Why is this bad? Show the reader she knows how to read chinese, instead of just magically learning chinese out of nowhere. It's silly, disjointed and frankly why doesn't she use it prior to telling the reader? It's flat out silly, makes the story hard to understand and follow through the laughter.
3. Tangents. Tandy goes off on all these tangents or flashbacks to explain something to the reader again, than randomly stop in the middle of them and explain that you'll save them for later. It was a few pages of this that drove me crazy and I actually started skipping the useless information. Stop throwing the reader promises, and frankly I didn't feel like some of those even came about.
4. Innuendos. Okay Innuendos are fun and all, but if you don't do them correctly or leak in your own prejudices or make the reader question the innuendo. There were names in the book and the one that stood out was a TV anchor Imbimbo, break it apart and you will question what he has against anchors. Its so easy to see and confusing. Pick a regular name and stop it. It's not funny, it doesn't add anything to the story at all.
Future writers, please take note of the list and learn from why this book just doesn't do good at all. Add to that the lack emotion in the main character. She's a rag doll that just randomly moves around. There's no attachment to her at all, and in fact she's just hard to connect with.
I didn't want to jump to a rating based on the ending, so in my search of other perspectives on the ending (from other reviewers), I've found that too many think it's just a complete letdown. Yeah, I will say that I didn't expect it, I saw it coming near the end, but frankly I didn't even think the ending was on the table. It was such a letdown I'm not even sure if I am going to read the sequel.
This is a prime example of what not to do when writing a book. There was just so much wrong with the book that frankly I am afraid to read anything else. How can an author so prolific as this pour effort and time into a book and it just be viewed as a complete waste of time. Frankly I hope someone out there enjoyed this book, but I don't see who or why they would... I thought the book was just so dry, the style done wrong or detracted from the story, and the main character was so uneventful.
