Thursday, May 24, 2012

Book: Bloody Freak by Emily Barker

Bloody Freak is the first in what is purported to be a series (note: there are at least three other books, as I've downloaded them to my Kindle). I've already gotten the second one and may make myself read it, since I can hope it's edited more professionally than this one.

Though the story has good bones, that's overshadowed, for me anyway, by the poor editing job. I'm pretty sure it was just run through a spellcheck, rather than having any actual editing done. I still have hope, but honestly, the editing has gotten worse since I started reading, rather than better.

There is a sexual situation early in the book, and then again in the last few pages of the book. The earlier one was much more graphic, and frankly, both were gratuitous to the storyline. The denouement wasn't exactly - there was just a speech by one character that basically wrapped everything up in a pretty bow just when things were getting interesting. The conflict I was expecting, even hoping for, did not materialize, and having it would have made the book much better.

There are sentence fragments, misused and misspelled words, a lack of commas where commas are sorely needed, and no apostrophes in possessives. Some examples: discrete instead of discreet; whose instead of who's; passed instead of past; conscience instead of conscious; conflictions instead of convictions (I'm not sure on that one, because conflictions isn't even a word.); everyday instead of every day; into instead of in to; went instead of gone; your instead of you're; queue instead of cue, rights instead of rites. Mistakes are not few and far between - they are on nearly every page, and frequently, there are several on each page.

I see the possibility of a pretty good storyteller here in this book, and hope that Ms. Barker will find herself a good editor or two and keep getting better.

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