Let me get this straight.
I am 16 years old, my dad just died a week ago in an accident, while my mum drives me to the airport to send me away to boarding school. With a complete set of fake identity, telling me my dad was actually murdered, telling me my real parents/ mum gave me up to safe my life, and now both our life’s are in danger. To never ever come back to Chicago because her life depends on it and to stay clear from the Sparrow/Sterling family.
How would a normal happy family, achieve such a goal of a complete set of new identity? Not a question anyone apparently is interested in asking. I just kept wondering.
If her real parents are still alive? Who knows? Apparently, she knew from the start she was adopted, but we never get to know, or told if she ever showed interest in knowing who or where her parents are or if they are still alive!
In apparently 10 years, she has never shown any interest in searching for the truth, or information about the names she was given, or even if her beloved stepmom is still alive. She had no interest at all.
During those 10 years, she founds a successful clothing company with her best friend, yet she has no qualms to set up one of the manufacturing and distributing locations of the company in Chicago, in all of the United States, she chose Chicago?
Yet, her best friend is pregnant and should not travel and she has no qualms to travel to Chicago in her stead, to Chicago? With little to no protest?
To a city that cost her the only dad she knew, that made her mum literally abandon her, that she promised to never go back again, that houses the dangerous family she should stay away from, that is dangerous to her life?
It all just makes no sense!!! And literally makes the heroine look like a simpleton!!!
Well, I am only at 25% of the story and the heroine is already testing my nerve.
Her reactions to several occasions so far are utter unnatural. Her justifications for her behaviour are ludicrous and unbelievable, really.
So far she didn’t show any appropriate emotion to any situation at all.
She expresses so much curiosity suddenly, to learn about her past and the fate of her stepmom, but never once in 10 years searched for information about the snippets of knowledge she was given by her stepmother before she was sent away?
But suddenly someone threatens her, threatens her friends, threatens her company, blackmails her, knows her real name and she is curious? Really?
The problem is a good author can sell me anything. But it has to be substantiated.
Why didn’t she show an interest before and suddenly does now. This is not properly formulated as well as all the other situations, emotions and decisions pointed out. Some reasonings were simply outlandish and not founded on solid ground.
Why would someone simply comply to a life
changing blackmailing by a simple picture?
All the obvious incidences??? Did I tell him my name? Did I give him the key card? Did the old man look sick?
Is she demented?
She is able to afford a several thousand dollar chauffeur service but isn’t able to get a burner phone? She is the founder and owner of a successful company but isn’t able to use a public phone? Instead she doesn’t call anyone because she knows her cell is bugged! Wow!
Someone shows her a picture of her friends at a restaurant, and she acts like they showed her a video of them being held hostage and tortured! Please, don’t contact the police or they will die? Nothing besides the picture actually happened!!
And don’t get me started on that weird incident on the Wichita airport!!
This whole plot is idiotic, the female character is idiotic.
I am not sure I will last much longer...
Update:
After 60% I couldn’t read any further.
The aforementioned points of criticism didn’t improve, instead I found more.
The female main character and her plainly adulation for all things luxury and expensive is repellent.
What is it with her and being a true blonde??
After a while I started skipping pages and only read the dialogues. And what I realised doing this is, the dialogues didn’t add up. They simply didn’t make any sense. It is really badly written. The two parties often talked past each other or at cross purposes. Without their thoughts in between the spoken words, the spoken words wouldn’t make any sense at all. And this is the crux of the whole book.
The dialogues aren’t authentic.
The characters aren’t authentic, foremost the main female character. Her authenticity suffers under the poorly executed personality only focused on where the plot should go and not what a real person would do, feel and think.
The single plot threads are also so out of place, badly strung together, it borders on fantastical.