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74 of 82 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I tried not to like it, but that didn't work..., September 21, 2010
This review is from: Solitary: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (Paperback)
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Travis Thrasher, Solitary (David C. Cook, 2010)
I didn't want to like Solitary.
Travis Thrasher has some major issues with knowing when to insert paragraph breaks. It almost reminds me of those horrid "free-verse" novels that have been appearing recently from people like Ellen Hopkins and Tanya Lee Stone.
And then there's the fact that it's "Christian Fiction".
I don't have problems with Christian fiction (I adore L'Engle and Mauriac, e.g.), but I like it to be presented to me that way rather than snuck in under the radar.
It's not the content, it's the deception, you see.
(Are you getting what I mean about the paragraph breaks? Isn't it annoying?)
So I was pretty much expecting to hate it.
But Thrasher...he's the real deal.
After the first couple of chapters, I was hooked.
I ended up reading the last half of the book yesterday in one fell swoop.
And yeah, despite my hatred of the "let's pad the book to four hundred pages by splitting my paragraphs every sentence or two" gig, one-sentence chapters? That I love. Especially when done effectively.
Like it is here.
So, yeah, some stylistic naggings to be had, and the ending pretty much screams out "this is the first book in a series", but I'm going to keep reading the series.
I just hope he learns about paragraph structure before he starts writing the second book. *** ½
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36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Jocelyn Cullen and the Guardian Angel, June 3, 2011
If what you want is Twilight for dudes, this, despite not a lingering whiff of vampires (sparkling or otherwise) is it. Chris continually chases after the beautiful, sad, angry and mysterious Jocelyn who spends her time treating him like dirt and lashing out at him for reasons he can't understand, but Chris puts up with it because she is, as I pointed out, beautiful, sad, angry, and mysterious. That is, essentially, her whole character. More time is given to descriptions of her "haunting eyes", her "long, sleek hands" and "cascade of hair" than is ever given to portraying her as an actual person; when Chris says at one point he is "falling for the hottest girl in school", you really get the sense that this is all he's interested in. Well, that and playing white knight; if you take a drink for every time he (belatedly) wants to protect her, or says he wants to run to her/away with her, you probably won't be able to stand up a third of the way through the narrative. There is absolutely no chemistry between them; Jocelyn shifts between lashing out at Chris for things he does "wrong" and being morose at what is honestly a life that's just too comically overdone with the tragedy to be taken seriously, and Chris says "Yeah," and "Okay" a lot in response. Unfortunately, you can go chapters and chapters of this treacle before you get a single whiff of "dark forces" and then it's right back to OH EM GEE SHE'S SO SAD AND PRETTY AAAAAAHHH YOU GUYS OUR LOVE IS SO REALS.
I was a little disappointed that the book revealed itself to be, approximately halfway through according to my Kindle, Christian fiction. I have nothing against Christianity or Christian fiction, but with those descriptors nowhere on this product, I was left feeling disappointed and cheated. Despite its tendency towards laughably overdramatic scenes of teen romance that all end the same way, I was enjoying a somewhat self-indulgent story that was at least an intriguing take on the "small town with a big secret". Unfortunately, when every discussion suddenly becomes a lecture on how important faith, belief, and blind faith are (the most baffling of these sermons come from Jocelyn herself), the book is less entertaining and more hectoring.
If I had known from the outset the sort of story I was getting into I probably would have rated it three stars, but having a horror story abruptly morph into a series of debates halfway through about how awesome being Christian is ruined it, and I wasn't willing to push through the things that had been annoying me because I didn't feel as though the book had been honest about itself with me from the outset. Give it a try if Christian fiction's your thing; despite the tedious self-indulgence and a few typos and formatting errors, Solitary manages to present a fairly intriguing little mystery... just make sure you know what you're getting into first.
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21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scary. Really, really scary., October 23, 2010
This review is from: Solitary: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (Paperback)
Solitary feels like a screaming run through a dark forest in the middle of the night during a thunder storm. You can't see anything. You can't hear anything. You can't fully understand what's going on. You know you've got to stop and take shelter. But you can't because you're scared of what might happen.
First and foremost, Solitary is scary. The type of scary that just sits in your gut and burns, screaming for you to run, even though you don't know who or what you're running from.
Next, it's so realistic and personal that after five chapters it's like you're Chris. You know what you would do in his situations. Then Chris does it like he's reading your mind. Which just makes it scarier. Because even though Chris does everything you're telling him to, his situation just keeps getting worse.
And lastly, if you don't cry after reading this book, or at least get severely choked up, no book ever will. Travis Thrasher's first attempt at YA fiction is such a seriously messed up, frightening, life-changing, tear-dripper, you're sure to love it.
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