Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Halo

Oh, the things I could say about this book. Why, you ask? Well, when the story starts on page 417 and there are only 489 pages in the book, you know you've got a problem. The summary of the so-called plot goes like this: Bethany comes to earth with her angel siblings Gabriel and Ivy to possess human bodies in order to bring light to the world. It sucks having to walk to the mailbox to pick up your junk mail when you've been hanging out on puffy white clouds for a thousand years. I mean, once you've been an angel, everything on earth pretty much sucks. But Bethany falls in love with a human boy named Xavier Woods. And that, my friends, is where the story stops. For over 400 pages Bethany putters around town examining the daffodils and holding hands with the perfect male specimen of Venus Cove. But wait, it gets better. 
Nope, I lied. It doesn't. 
I seriously found myself skipping a minimum of 2 paragraphs every page - everything was so grossly overwritten that I was bored out of my mind. Seriously, I was eating ice cream and counting the chocolate chips in each bite as I scanned the pages to see if anything had happened yet. And I do mean anything. Did Bethany buy new toothpaste? Did she fall down and skin her knee? Did Xavier bring her a box of gummy worms? (Yup...gummy worms.) No! Plus, the angels were supposed to come to earth to bring "goodwill" and "light," but they never did anything but cook breakfast and sew clothing. No motivation. No problem that the characters had to overcome. It's kind of a big chunk of the story that was missing. Alexandra Adornetto started out with a good premise, but there was no plot, no tension, and no real reason for the angels to be on earth. That's not to say that her writing isn't pretty. It is. It's very artistic, in fact. But the entire story could have been told in 10 pages, not 489. That is why the story drags. Tension did not enter Bethany's world until page 417. As for me, I was tense just trying to get to the end of the book. Mission accomplished, now I'm off to read Dust and Decay, by Jonathan Maberry. Later, lovelies! 

3 comments:

  1. Exactly my thoughts! But i couldn't get further than around 90 pages and i didn't try further to torture myself

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    Replies
    1. Lucky you, lol. I don't know why I pressed on...

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    2. Such things help to realize the worth of good books

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