SLaSZT reviewed Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz (Orphan X, #6)
Felt lazy, poorly edited and relied on too many boring thriller/drama tropes
3 stars
Not the best Orphan X novel, to be honest; it feels more like it's just there to bridge between the last book and the next rather than saying anything important about Evan or any of the other characters as people, despite what the prose might have you believe.
It's nice to imagine that Evan wants to be a regular person with real emotions, but we barely ever get to see him try, other than a few musings about getting drunk and working out less early on. Also, the loose ends basically wrapped up themselves - the Gentner siblings especially. Lazy and overdone, in my opinion - the comparison between a soap opera and the events of the plot is literally made in the book itself so I guess I don't even have to go there. Don't even get me started on Andre and Veronica. It all felt meaningless and disposable. …
Not the best Orphan X novel, to be honest; it feels more like it's just there to bridge between the last book and the next rather than saying anything important about Evan or any of the other characters as people, despite what the prose might have you believe.
It's nice to imagine that Evan wants to be a regular person with real emotions, but we barely ever get to see him try, other than a few musings about getting drunk and working out less early on. Also, the loose ends basically wrapped up themselves - the Gentner siblings especially. Lazy and overdone, in my opinion - the comparison between a soap opera and the events of the plot is literally made in the book itself so I guess I don't even have to go there. Don't even get me started on Andre and Veronica. It all felt meaningless and disposable. Will Andre even ever be mentioned again?
The writing in this, compared to the previous books, seemed a lot more messy and left the imagery feeling rushed; I get that it's an action-thriller so the pacing is meant to be exaggerated, but I do actually need to feel thrilled and not just mesmerized by adjectives and adverbs and a distinct lack of commas. It left an impression of being nearly unintelligible in parts.
That this book ends in a weird cliffhanger that doesn't really feel very thoughtful is the stale icing on a day-old supermarket cake. That final scene could definitely have waited until the beginning of the follow-up novel and elicited just as much suspense. Hopefully this entry was a cash-grab and the next will be more developed.
