The Wombat's Book Blog

I really wanted to like this book. Sadly, it appears to be in dire need of an editor.

Normally, when I got to my first "I do not think this word means what you think it means" moment, I move on to a different book, but the light and fluffy writing drew me in until I was almost able to ignore the fact that the author seems to think that 'harbouring' means the same as 'hoarding'. There's no excuse for the later substitution of 'ushering' for what I can only assume to be 'butchering', and the two your/you're substitutions I noticed made my brain itch. These complaints may be petty and if this were fanfiction I'd leave the author a note pointing them out and otherwise ignore, but this purports to be a published novel created by professionals, so my standards are fairly high when it comes to the basic nuts and bolts of writing.

In addition, this book wanders from encounter to encounter randomly with no attempt at a coherent plot and absolutely no character consistency. The reactions of some of the characters are so strange that I can only hope that one part of the never-fully-explained apocalypse was some kind of crazy gas.

All these problems aside, the book has the bones of a delightful story, and I cannot help but feel that the author has been badly served by her editors, if she has editors at all. Her voice is unique and her protagonist is charming, despite the often-nonsensical situations she finds herself in.

In short, I find myself wishing that I could take a red pen to this book, because with some decent editing it could be so much better than it is now.