I'm not sure that it actually happened, but I could swear entire scenes would pass without any written dialogue. This entire book almost reads like a first pass outline of a book, like the author was sketching out scenes, filling in a line of dialogue or two already in her head so she could include them when she comes back to actually write the book. What a succinct and unemotional way for someone to describe their own grief at the recent loss of a teammate. Intellectually he knew he wasn’t responsible, but his heart wasn’t in complete agreement.

Truth told, he had been trying to cover up a little depression since Lan’s death.

He could see that, from their point of view, this would appear to be odd behavior. It honestly felt like I was reading a summary of what happened rather than reading about events unfolding. Worse, that narrator felt very detached from the story. There are multiple POVs, but the voice didn't change much between the characters, so it just felt like the same omniscient narrator throughout.

Get comfy, because I have so many feelings that I ended up spending an entire lunch break ranting about this book to the admin at my job, and he only cares about dad books, like, the ones about submarines and, I don't know, World War I trench warfare.įirst and foremost, the writing style is very much not for me. So, keep in mind that my review may be influenced by such a dizzyingly steep let down. A dog who was a very good boy, yes he was! I was ready to give this book 5 stars before I even opened it up.

My Familiar Stranger by Victoria Danann