My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Review: The Harvested

The Harvested The Harvested by Kindra Sowder
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Narration: Okay if a bit overly dramatic. The cadence and intonation frequently at odds with what I felt should have been the emotion context of the text. The cast of voices was actually pretty good, if only there were more dialogue.

So many useless words ...
Mutant is discovered by the government and becomes a victim of an expected forced rendition to a secret lab where they conduct experiments while said prisoners plot their inevitable revenge ... now add details to make it interesting ... except that doesn't happen here.

What we get instead is an entire chapter on how to cook and eat green beans? This type of detail is not good world building and does not advance the main plot. Just as aggravating is the perpetual perseveration on the same dramatic element for pages of internal soliloquy (oh the drama of it all). Stir in some ridiculous science and I was nearly screaming at the speaker about how that is not how any of this works (hint: when atoms split really bad things happen ... except in this story where you just bleed a little bit). I kept hoping the story would pick up, but except for a few rare parts, it never really did.

Then we get to the main character ... I can tolerate a fair amount of youthful angst, but Mila hit my limit pretty quickly. The constant introspection was driving me bat crazy with how if took forever to resolve ... only to circle back to it later and do it again. I really do have a low threshold for drama (so if that is your thing, feel free to consider my rating 1 star higher). I just could not connect to any of the characters at all. By the time we get to the point where MC is revealed to be truly monstrous, any sympathy I may have had for that character completely evaporated. She was forced to make a choice ... she chose poorly. In the end, I did not really see much in the way of character growth before we get the pseudo cliffhanger ending (no real resolution yet) and a detailed setup/info-dump for the next book.

This title is also currently available on Kindle Unlimited ...
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#feeaudiobookcodes #audiobookboom

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.