Dead Certain: A Novel Format Kindle

The Kindle First program combines two things I love, getting stuff for free, and getting stuff before everybody else... Oh and reading, I guess reading is cool too. Haha but seriously the first of the month always gets me excited for the new selections. I don't even need the e-mail reminder, I anxiously await them. I've been disappointed by the selections before but this month... UGH! It all comes down to personal preference but none of the books this month were ones I would even consider purchasing. I almost wanted to skip this month but there have been other months when I begrudgingly chose a book I wasn't that interested in that ended up surprising me. Unfortunately that was not the case this month.

I feel really bad crapping on anyone else's creative efforts, I've certainly never managed to write a novel myself and I'm sure the author spent many more hours working on it than I spent reading it, but I want my 4 hours back. I'm trying to figure out a way to explain why I didn't like it without spoiling anything plot wise but it's virtually impossible. I'll do my best.

The book begins from the perspective you would expect from the description, the main character Ella Broden. There are definitely moments when you can tell it's a man trying to write from a woman's perspective and it feels awkward to me but this really did not bother me too much. I was mildly enjoying it for maybe an hour or so. The characters were well set up and it seemed like the kind of mystery/thriller story I tend to enjoy. The story then alternates chapters between this perspective and her sister's unfinished novel. I wish I had warning that several chapters are basically a Fifty Shades-ish "romance" novel. That is not what I'm into at all, and the sex scenes really add nothing to the story. As much as I dislike romance novels, the chapters were short at least so I pressed on. It's about 2/3 of the way through the story that the narrator without warning switches again and for me, this part ruined the book. No way to describe further without major spoilers. I absolutely hated the rest of the story.

There are a couple of twists that I saw coming from a mile away, really annoyingly obvious actually. Once the initial "mystery" part is solved there is still over a quarter of the book left that I really didn't even want to finish reading. That is very unlike me, I finish things I start. Well, books at least. I stopped a few times but ultimately decided I've already gotten this far... let's see where it goes. I'm so disappointed with what actually happened in the end. Very unsatisfying and seems like the author just kind of gave up. If I could unread this one I would. My only consolation is I just looked at the Kindle First picks again and I still have zero interest in any of the others so at least I didn't miss out on anything.

Story was very predictable with a very slow start.
More importantly, many conversations were repeated verbatim between chapters as different characters recalled the situation.

I certainly have mixed feelings about this book. It was entertaining, I can give it that. The language was highly offensive and unnecessary. If you're offended by language then skip this book. The minute the killer enters the story I knew he was the killer. It was predictable in that sense. If you didn't see it coming, then the story will keep you guessing with the many possibilities. Parts of the story were intellectually written, however other parts offensively predicable. I don't regret reading this story, however I won't be reading more by this author unless the language is cleaned up. Thanks.

The narrative flip flops back and forth in time and between characters so often that it becomes a challenge to follow. If not for kindles pray feature I doubt that I would have even bothered to finish the book. The narrative was repeated verbatim numerous times as the characters each told their story and I found myself fast forwarding often. For me, a tedious read.

I actually started to write a review of this book a week/2 weeks ago after reading it for free as a Kindle First -a 2-star rating with a long-drawn out critique about the superficial depictions of characters, the implausible coincidences, and the general sense fostered by the book that I was reading a not-particularly well-crafted mystery. I didn't follow through with my review, however. Then, tonight, while searching for other books to read on Amazon, I was surprised to see this book listed under Amazon's "Best Seller/Selling" Banner, and decided I needed to go look at the reviews, and see what others found that I didn't. What I saw, however, was that while this book had an averaged rating of 4.2, the percentages of positive reviews and negative reviews didn't "add up" arithmatically to a 4.2 average (too many 1 & 2 ratings) - which is when I read the "fine, but not fully elucidating, print" re how Amazon computes its rating average - essentially, it/Amazon uses a system based on some type of discretionary weighting system that may or may not mirror customer feedback. Anyway, for what it is -or is not worth - my "2 rating" of this book stands.