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| Book cover via Amazon.com |
Opinion
William sent me his books long ago, and for more about that check out my previous blog posts. "Fairy Tale" and "David Sparks" are both available to read on my blog!
Though I reviewed both, I haven’t reviewed the other two books William sent my way. William never specifically asked me to review this book, but I wanted to give another honest review. I wanted to send this out there into the book reviewing cosmos because he doesn’t talk about it nearly as much as his current projects, and the other beautiful book he sent.
Full confession, (get it? Confession? No? Darn) I read this book while I was in downtime after NaNoWriMo, and I loved it. This time, to make sure I was ready for the review, I pulled the copy back out, and I went to William’s Youtube channel and listened to him read it to me. Oh yeah, did you know he read his books live? Well, as far as I can tell he's only ever done this one time, and I got to hear him read it to me while I read along. As far as an audiobook performance, it was lovely. There are some rather funny parts where his Facebook and Twitter feeds cut out at random. Sometimes those things happened when the story was especially serious, and it added a kind of cliffhanger where there wasn't one before.
Apparently last year sometime, he got on Facebook Live and Twitter Live and read it to everyone. I didn’t know he had done this. Alas, at the time I wasn’t really active on Twitter. But, since I met him on Twitter, I always kind of wondered what he sounded like. Listening to William read his book while I followed along to read, not only helped put a voice to the Tweets he sends out. But aside from that, I got to read with him and see where he put the emphasis on specific words. By hearing him read it out, it actually improved my perception of the pacing in the story.
The story aside from any audio performance itself is well done. This story takes you the reader on a journey with the main character across a lot of the main character's thoughts. As things go on, the topics change, the opinions differ, and it does give the reader the idea they need to figure out what they personally believe about whatever the topic is. Sometimes the main character contradicts himself, other times he does not, and you get to sit there and contemplate what you may or may not say.
Critiques? So I haven’t read this on e-book, I have the physical copy. I cannot tell you how it reads on a kindle, but as far as it is in the actual book form, I have no problems structurally with the book. Grammar, punctuation, etc. is on point. My one and only critique, there is some ranting in this book that I may not personally agree with, but that ranting is critical to the plot. Don't worry everyone, my feelings were not hurt.
Let’s go into positives. This book was made for a long read, and it is so kind. There are built in break sections into the book so that you can take a moment, make a sandwich and get some tea, then go back to reading. I enjoyed that. Interactive reading is excellent, especially the ones that really consider what a person is thinking about during a break.
As far as the ultimate story, this first-person narrative tells a complete beginning, middle and ending. One thinks that this is one kind of conversation, and as things go the reality of the dialogue is more apparent. I loved how the chapter brakes come with the natural pauses and are not pushed through with information that isn’t important. That’s something William does so very well, he did it in the other book I read of his, and those pauses impact this story so well.
But the ending of this book is by far one of the most likely and intense things. The revelations that occur are on point and terrifying. This book leaves you shaken. There is so much emotion into every element, but so much logic as well. You should stay to the end, it’s terrifying. Footprints in the sand, in this case, takes on such a different meaning with this book and it’s ending.
Score
Score here 97/100. The book has so very few flaws, and this is a five-star rating on Goodreads and Amazon.com. And if you want to listen to him read it, please do on his youtube channel.
With that my friends, this has been a December to Remember for the record books. I'd like to thank every author who let me review their books, and mostly, I'd like to thank you who read my reviews. I do this out of love with honesty and integrity, and this has been a delight for me to give this gift to you all.
Happy New Year!
Mrs. Y
