Reviews and Comments

This was a disappointment. Not unexpected because I generally don't enjoy YA books so I went in with low expectations, which were unfortunately met. I'm actually not giving this a star rating because I liked Holmes, what little glimpses we got of him anyway. If it was to get a star, it would be a 2.5.returnreturnThings I liked about the book:returnreturnThe Holloway Holmes characterreturnreturnThings I didn't like about the book:returnreturnThe Jack Moreno character. The book was off to a terrible start for me when the narrator could only seem to describe other characters by their skin color. He's also a drug dealer but we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he's been knocked around by life. Poor poor Jack..the Victim narrative. So so sick of this push to deny personal responsibility everywhere. returnThat the only POV was the Jack Moreno character.returnThat the mystery was transparent and you knew the bad guy almost from the beginning. returnThat the book was filled with unnecessary padding that added nothing but tedious length to the story.returnThat almost every secondary character was a freaking cliche. Lazy writing. returnreturnIf this book centered the Holmes character it would have been so much better. Giving him any narrative voice at all might have salvaged the book for me.

DNF. Bad case of ASS (Author Soapbox Syndrome.) Using characters as mouthpieces for author's ideology. Started out with non-binary and pronoun nonsense and quickly moved on to systemic racism, white privilege and all cops are bad BLM talking points. There was some sort of drag character referenced too, like the author had this woke checklist that had to be ticked off. Every character was described by their skin color, as if that is the essence of a person. As someone who grew up right after MLK civil rights movement and was actually raised to see individuals and not skin color, I find these efforts to take us backward repugnant. And that was all in the first few chapters. rollseyes Clumsy and heavy handed moralizing with a target audience of readers who need to be educated and have their opinions assigned to them as if they were second graders. Was advertised as paranormal mystery with gay protagonist. What a joke.