I am trying something new. (Some of you getting this email out of the blue after 4 years will probably be surprised, and this may not be your thing. Just skip over it.) I have discovered a world where folks like me get advance copies of books and are asked to give reviews. As a part of that, the reviews need to be public and published places where they will be seen. I just finished my first of three books that I have received, and I wish my first one had been better. Until I can figure out how to categorize these in a different manner, they will just be on my main feed for now.
The Damages (Marian Warner #2)
Shelley Costa
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I received this advance copy of The Damages from NetGalley with the expectation by them that I would provide my honest review.
I did not love this book.
Initially, the author's writing style was hard to follow. There were punctuation errors, or it was -missing completely. Phrases that didn't read well. And later there were even places where the person changed. The sentence read "Marian threw up my hands." It should have been Marian threw up her hands based on the narrator's point-of-view. The book just felt like it hadn't been adequately proofed and edited.
But I tried to move past all that and just focus on the story itself. It wasn't a bad story, but it was incomplete, in my opinion. This is the second book with common characters. I will be honest and say I didn't read the first one before starting this one. Maybe that would have helped. But The Damages was not listed as a sequel, just the second in a series. Series books should be able to stand, somewhat, on their own. A little more background filler to help develop the characters in this book would have been helpful. The author obviously assumed that the first book would have been read because there were vague references to "that time in January" and such, but not enough for me to understand the true relationships between some of the characters. And without that background, I just didn't find myself really invested in them. And because I wasn't invested in them, I didn't really care.
My next issue was with the wrap-up of the story itself. A successful mystery will leave appropriate clues for the reader to find, without giving away the ending. I have yet to understand how Marian solved this case based on what was presented. The story jumped around and that left gaps and then suddenly she's got it all worked out and calling the Sheriff. The final chapter made absolutely no sense. Absolutely superfluous. The two characters involved had only been given a brief interaction earlier in the book, but it was made known they were close. Just not as close as became obvious at the end.
In all, I found it disjointed and not an easy read. It shouldn't take 20 days to read 200 pages, but it was just not that interesting and I wasn't compelled to keep reading. I read most of it on a 3-hour flight because there was nothing else to do.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/9154491-deanne-tanksley
