Sometimes a good way to get a book out (as a writer) is to send it to different review companies and blog sites… such our site right here, Don’t Forget A Towel. So when author Kev Heritage sent out a digital copy of Blue, Into The Rip for us to read, we were definitely excited.
Having just finished a book (Walking Dead: Road to Woodbury), I took it upon myself to tackle this one next. At only 320 or so pages on my iPad, I figured I could get through this one pretty fast.
I was wrong.
Let me summarize the review in two comments:
1) Cra-mazing it was NOT.
2) //Cra-mazing. A ridiculous word that is overused in an attempt to signify the young characters of the story, yet sometimes used incorrectly and demonstrating the author’s lack of talent.\\
I’m sorry. I know they say that if you do not have anything good to say, don’t say anything; but hey… you want me to lie on my review? Let me try to keep it short at least. First, the issue with these first two points.
1) The author constantly uses these ridiculous words like “cra-mazing” (which obviously means, Crazy Amazing) and “aw-wonder-sum” (Awesome and Wonderful?). But he unfortunately overused them to an unbearable point, and each time I read those ridiculous words, I cringed. Overusing any word in a story is a bad idea, let alone some ridiculous sounding adjectives like these.
The worst part of this is, the author seems to want to indicate the young age of the characters, and maybe in turn make the story identifiable to a younger audience; but this backfires as he uses it many times in his own (author’s) descriptions – instead of only when the character would say or think it. Which makes me wonder, does this author actually use these words in his own vocabulary? Does he actually lack a more diverse vocabulary, where he needs to use and reuse these ridiculous words?
2) Every few pages there is a snippet/cutaway from the story describing a particular thing (usual a word) to the reader. It reminds me a little of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where you would get those guide entries explaining certain things. But unlike the comedic and clever use of it in that magnificent book (which is obviously the namesake for our website, Don’t Forget A Towel), it is actually pretty dumbed down and awkward here. As first it just seems random, and in turn a distraction from the story. Then, when you start realizing this novel is for a younger audience, it seems ok… a little educational add-on for all the young readers. But as you keep reading, even these get overused, and more and more for unwarranted reasons; leading them to be annoying and immature. Inserted for the sake of using them.
Well… those were two big issues that stuck out that I needed to mention first. I’ll continue with the basics right now, which are not good.
The characters are too bland. They’re boring, whining, stupid brats that act with no rhyme or reason. They’re constantly changing characteristics, without at any point starting to display “who” each person is, and what kind of character he/she might be. It’s like I wanted to say, “Oh, I like how this character is…” but couldn’t finish the sentence because by then the character acted differently and changed who they were. And when I almost said it then, it changed to something else.
This leads to a bunch of characters that don’t act out of any particular emotional motive, but have emotions that come out of nowhere in order to propel the story forward from one scene into another. I’m sorry, but the scene should bring about the emotion which should in turn create a reaction/event. Here an emotion evolves from nowhere, specifically to produce a reaction so as to lead them to the next scene. It’s like the author does not know how to get from point A to point B, so just changes the characters personality and thoughts randomly to help him trudge along.
All in all, I never liked any of the characters, and did not care what happened to them. False: I actually hoped they would get killed off so the story would end sooner.
The story itself is nothing compelling. It tries to tie in time-travel (which, for its usage later in the story, Mr Heritage does a decent job with that at least), along with a young militia and the perils that come with it. It drags on until the very end where it “kinda” gets interesting, but still remains lackluster.
With all honesty, I couldn’t help but compare it to Ender’s Game (which “coincidentally” had just come out in theaters). It’s like the author saw the previews for the movie, remembered reading the book when he was younger (or quickly read it at the moment) and then decided to make a similar genre story.
Where Ender’s Game is also directed for a younger audience, it still remains a magnificent book, even for adults. Maybe even more so, as it becomes an easy read. It has emotion, character, passion, heart; it is very well written, clever and intelligent.
Why am I mentioning my thoughts on Ender’s Game? Because it was also directed for a younger audience, and shows that you do not need to dumb the story down (or the writing) in order to do so.
Ugh… I really can go on forever explaining all the unimpressive points of Blue, Into The Rip but I feel like I just wasted forever trying to finish it as is.
So, let me just go ahead and wrap things up. Don’t read this story unless:
1) You specifically would like to see how bad a book can be written.
2) You have a fetish for self-torture.
That is all,
~mozeus
