Customer Reviews

The Hungry Ghosts

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4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a pretty bad book. The multiple point-of-view is confusing, the characters are unbelievable, and not one of them is likable. Also, there's way too much telling and not enough showing. Probably less than 10 percent of the text is conversation, and the rest is just narration. This results in a really flat book; it could have been a lot more active. Oh, and there's some really bad sections where the author has the characters 'tell' you necessary historical background. Very clumsy.

That said, the author isn't completely talentless. Her descriptions of places are often vivid and she has some good use of words. (She has a few really miserable ones, too, where her metaphors are tortured and in some cases laughable.) If she'd had either a good editor or a really good writing workshop, she might have come up with a better book. As it is, this one seems to have been hurried into print while still in first draft or second draft stage.

This book is inspiring to aspiring writers. Why? Because if a book this bad can make it into print, maybe yours can too.

I'm confused about what was the point of this novel. I read it because I've lived in London, Paris and Hong Kong. It was fun to read about familiar places but that was where the enjoyment ended.

Why did this ghost latch on to this girl? Was there some lesson on life after death or what was it going on?

The writing style was very annoying, written in the first person by multiple characters but all sounding the same. The only one who didn't write was the main character, which was a disappointment. I would have kind of liked to have had her explain some things.

Most of the players are really unsympathetic, especially the mother. She seems to have no logic or soul and the only "explanation" was that her brother was favored as a child. There is also a very thinly explained suicide and it's odd that someone gets pregnant at 16 and then without explanation, never gets pregnant again. Certainly that wasn't the reason? Not medically accurate. Sorry!

How can this be a debut novel, so brave and professional in it`s delivery and evocative in it`s imagination, descriptive elegance near to Peake and in it`s own way as thought rendering as The Shack, but I prefer the ghosts, bring on the next lady!