Adam

Lack of Plot Elements Kills the Story

Revisado: 08-02-21

I'm so sad to quit this book. I enjoyed the writing style very much, and the author had me emotionally connected to the main character within the first couple of pages. He does a great job with all the relationship stuff, but the plot is almost non-existent. You could take the plot points out without changing anything in the story, or effecting it at all. Therefore, I'm adding this to my DNF shelf. :(

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Too many amateur writing mistakes

Revisado: 02-26-21

Too many adverbs, especially in dialogue attribution, and employing linguistic acrobatics just to avoid the word “said” are just two of the problems I can’t overlook. DNF

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All Story & No Plot (But a great adverb thesaurus)

Revisado: 10-19-20

First of all, the writing is chalk full of terrible adverbs, to the point that I laughed out loud at some of them. How many times can you use “she thought concretely,” and what does that even mean? “She thought screamingly” was a good one that made me laugh. Or how about, “he frowned unhappily.” Is there any other way to frown?

Secondly, nothing happens in this book. Where is the conflict? It’s all story and no plot and none of the characters are developed. I had to bail 3/4 of the way through cuz literally nothing is happening!

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Brutally Slow Plot

Revisado: 01-23-19

I made it to chapter 10 before I pulled the plug. The author's writing is clean, nothing in his manner that I disliked, so if there had been a compelling story I'd have stuck with it. He had a great opportunity to kick the plot off when the main character's crackhead brother told him he'd found something on a computer. But instead of revealing anything about what it was we're left in the dark for another half dozen chapters. How am I supposed to care about anything that's going on? Someone gets murdered that I don't know. :shrug: I was begging for a reason to care about the plot or the characters but eventually I gave up.

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Fantastic Writing, Poor Storytelling

Revisado: 03-28-17

Nick Cutter has the gift of writing, he has that extra skill that most author's lack, but this book suffered from poor storytelling. First and foremost, it suffers in that it doesn't have a main character. I had no idea who the protagonist was supposed to be, and when I don't have a character I can relate to or identify with or root for, my attention is not captured. This left only the plot to entertain me but that wasn't developed very well, imo. After the 3rd person falls sick and I realize the same thing is happening, just to different people, I begin to get bored from a plot that doesn't thicken. I also didn't like the way bits of medical journals at the end of each chapter interrupted the story to explain stuff. It took me out of the story.

I didn't make it to the end. I just lost interest and quit.

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

Average Writing, Slow Plotting

Revisado: 03-20-17

The writing's not bad, thankfully, but not quite up to snuff. Too much attention to facial expressions and superfluous character thoughts give it an amateurish feel. Also, there's a lot of 'telling' instead of 'showing.' However, I could have overlooked these things had the story been captivating, but the plotting is painfully slow. I gave up after 20 or so chapters.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Flat Characters - No Plot

Revisado: 01-18-17

The main character is flat as a pancake. An old guy who misses his wife. After a few hours of listening I literally know nothing else about this character. The author also doesn't develop any relationships between any characters. Just when you think a relationship might start developing, the author puts on the brakes.

Additionally, there's no plot. This guy joins the army because he's old and hopes they'll make him young again. What's the protagonist's main goal or desire? No idea, he doesn't seem to have one. What's the primary conflict of the story? I don't know, it doesn't seem to have that either. Without conflict there can be no drama, and without drama I was left bored.

Also, this author feels like he has to tag every line of dialogue. Even if it's just two people talking, he'll tag every single line with "he said" and "she said." Unnecessary dialogue tags is one of my biggest pet peeves.

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Purposeless and Directionless

Revisado: 10-03-16

In good stories we need a reason to connect with the hero, a reason to root for them. The author gave us no reasons here. What was the main characters purpose and goal? I cannot tell you. A bunch of things happened to him, but they do not connect to one another to create a compelling narrative. Therefore, I cannot recommend this book.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Plot as an Afterthough

Revisado: 10-03-16

Stephen King's greatest flaw was on display in this story:

Plot as an afterthought.

I love many King classics such as It, The Stand, The Shining, Salem's Lot, etc., but I haven't been able to read his latest books because the plotting is so horrendously slow. I quit halfway through Buick 8, Doctor Sleep, Cell, and Mr. Mercedes for this very reason. I thought it was a problem which only affected his more recent writings, but after attempting to read Cujo I realize the seeds for his plotting issues were always there. I quit halfway through Cujo, too.

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No Character Motivation

Revisado: 09-13-16

What disappointed you about Neverwhere?

This story suffers from a lack of character motivation. Richard, the main character, finds a girl named Door who can open doors to other places. Seemed like a good start but then she leaves him and the plot flounders. Richard then meets up with a girl who can speak to rats and the plot starts over, but that ends up going nowhere too. Richard himself really has no purpose or motivation, he just wanders from one scene to the next, tagging along with other characters because he has nowhere else to go. I got halfway through the book before giving up. By that time, if I don't know what the character's purpose and goals are, I'm done.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Tomorrow War

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

The narrator himself was very good, but they constantly used weird echo effects during dream and memory sequences. I found myself struggling to understand what the narrator was saying during those and I really disliked it.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Neverwhere?

Nothing needs to be cut, the story needs scenes added to establish character motivation and progress the plot.

Any additional comments?

The author relied too much on adverbs. It wasn't uncommon to count 3 or 4 in one sentence or half a dozen or more in a paragraph. The dialogue was peppered with them too. It smacked of amateurishness.

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