§ I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley to review but I was not financially compensated in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my observations while reading this novel. §
This means that for the length of the book you are reading one free verse poem after another. Sadly, I felt that this was a bit tiring halfway through since each poem felt like it was the same. Nothing new, refreshing or different happened. One way that could have been used to show Paige's character development would have been to change the style of the poems as the story progresses.
In addition, I may be a bit of a traditionalist but I am not convinced by that using random line breaks in sentences counts as poetry. While this tool can be used to place empathy on certain words it feels rather arbitrary in "One Too Many Lies".
Just because— Susanne Kainer (@floralcars1) 8. Oktober 2018
You put random
Line breaks
In your sentence doesn't make it
Poetry
....
Or does it?
🤔
It was also hard to connect with any of the characters. At first Paige always seems to be the same - rarely having more than one dimension: you know next to nothing about her family, you never learn what motivated her, and she seems pretty flat and stereotypical.
Then something happens that shifts her behaviour. However, the amount of time dedicated to this change in character is far less than it would deserve. Not even a third of the book deals with her character development when it should have been the main part. This makes this change very sudden and as a reader you are not able to follow it.
Overall, I must admit that "One Too Many Lies" by L.A. Bowen falls flat. I couldn't get into the story or the characters.While poetry isn't for everyone, I also didn't find the style very agreeable.
| One Too Many Lies | by L.A. Bowen | |
|---|---|---|
| Published | 2018 | by West 44 Books |
| Pages: | 200 | |
| ISBN: | 1538382504 | |
| Goodreads: | Add to shelf | |
| Buy on ... | amazon.com |
Like I had mentioned in your instaInst post, imbnI'm usyusua a fan of books written in verse. Honestly it feels kind of gimmicky to me, as if that's the only feature of the book that counts. And yes, just putting line breaks doesn't count as poetry.
ReplyDelete