Winning this book through goodreads I felt I owed it to get through this book, otherwise I don't believe I would of. Though the main characters are fleshed out fairly well, the antagonists seemed little more than generic evil murdering goth guys with some underworldly evil counterparts that make few appearances in this novel. The characters decisions throughout the book left me scratching my head as quite often they made little sense. Overall the writting style was probably the biggest issue I had with this book. Instead of pulling me into the story it left me feeling outside, reading like a report more than a story much of the time. It often felt like we're given brief synopsies of what's going on, but not given enough to actually feel like we're experiencing it. Sometimes it became confusing too when two or three people would be speaking within the same paragraph or when scenes would jump from one scene in one paragraph to a completely different scene the next.
I would say that the fight scenes were propaply where probably the part of this book I liked the most. As opposed to most of the book where the experience wasn't really there, the authors descriptions during those scenes really seemed to come to life and actually pulled me in for the short periods where they occured. Since this book is the first book of a trilogy it wasn't until the later part of the book that these scenes really occured, and I could see them being more prominent in the later books and helping them out.
I enjoyed the book, I usually don't pick this kind of book, but when I read the back of it, it intrigued me. Could not put it down. I tried to figure out the ending but, when I would get to that part of the chapter it took another direction. A lot of twists and turns it keeps you guessing till the very end. Not sure the persons died, that I would of chosen but it made the book more interesting. the author has great vision. I hope he does more of the same, small town, good fighting evil, good guy wins.
I really wanted to like this book, but truthfully it was hard to get through. It read like a very rough draft. I could see potential but it needs a lot of work to smooth it out. Storyline inconsistencies, does not transition well from one scene to the next and lots of editing issues with grammar and word choice. I passed this book on to a coworker without saying anything about my opinion. I was thinking maybe I was too picky; they gave it back after reading 20 pages and said they had a hard time reading it and mentioned some of the same issues I had.
This is definitely not the kind of book that I would have read but so glad I did. It has historical and geographical significance, good vs. evil, inner conflicts with God, stigmas on differing groups of people within society and true love.
If I don't like I book, I will not get past the second chapter and this one definitely had me hooked! Can't wait until the sequel because I got so involved with the characters in this one.