Finding Eden

Camilla Beavers

Fantasy

200 pages

Teen

Warnings: Violence

There's something different about Eden. She sees the emotions of people in the colors that surround them, colors so bright that she has to wear sunglasses in order to be able to see anything. Eden begins dreaming of a boy, one with golden eyes. When he shows up at her school, she does her best to avoid him, but finds that difficult when he follows her everywhere and she finds him so intriguing with his lack of colors.

Writing Style: 4/10

I had to deduct a lot of points from this for two major reasons. One, words seems to be repeated numerous times in a very small space. A great example of this is in the first paragraph where the word eye is used five times and it's not a long passage. The second major deduction is that although all of the words seemed to be spelled correctly in the story, many of them were the wrong ones. Say instead of day, as instead of at. This happens a lot in this story and is something that an editor could easily fix. The rest of the writing style is fairly decent, but the amount of time you spend deciphering the meaning of the writing is a real problem.

Plot:6 /10

In the beginning, I really was interested in the plot. There was the mystery of Sahariel (the mysterious boy) and why Eden could see the colors and all of that resolved very nicely around the middle of the book. Then you go to another region, where Sahriel is from, and things are completely different and my interest sort of petered out. The plot had already had a sort of climax, although it could have been better and I wasn't really up for another plot yet.

Originality: 4/10

A lot of sci-fi/fantasy books have this type of plot. The main character has something strange about them, someone mysterious shows up, they have a love/hate relationship with this person, the same person who ends up explaining this to them and showing them a world they didn't know existed that is dangerous and different. It's not a bad plot, especially if the writing is good, it's just not very original.

Enjoyability: 6/10

I sincerely enjoyed the first half of the book. It was set in the current world with interesting characters and interesting situations. Then you get halfway through it and all of those characters are replaced by new characters, the setting is completely different and I just couldn't really enjoy it as much. I feel like the two halves of these books needed to be fleshed out and turned into their own individual novels, especially the second half. They were both good, they just needed more to them for me to truly enjoy them.

End: 4/10

The end was very lack luster. It was predictable, sure, but that wasn't why I gave it such a low score. It was just so anti-climatic. I was expecting a little more from the confrontation than I got. It seemed like as soon as it started, it had ended and I was left severely disappointed.

Overall: 24/50

You can get Finding Eden from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Find Camilla Beavers in Good Reads.

Has anyone read any good indie e-books recently? Any suggestions for future posts?

Spree

Spree

Jonathan DeCoteau

Paranormal

153 pages

Older Teen

Warnings: Character death, mentions of sex, underage drinking and driving, violence

After pre-gaming her ex-boyfriend's party, Fay DeSoto gets behind the wheel and subsequently  kills herself and a schoolmates mother and puts her two best friends in the hospital. When she dies, she becomes a taker, a spiritual being that exists to take lives. When she finds out that her death may have triggered another student to kill others at the school's championship soccer game, she makes it her goal to try and stop him by using her death day wish to be allowed to try and stop it.

Writing Style: 9/10

I thought it was good. There were a few mistakes, but nothing so terrible that it took away from the story. I also think that the scenes with Fay's mother were incredibly well written. They really hit me hard. It may be my own impending motherhood influencing my emotions, but I feel like it was more than that. That DeCoteau really just wrote her well.

Plot: 8/10

There were a few small times that the plot was a little confusing, such as why Fay had to wish for the chance to stop Zipper instead of just being able to stop him, but for the most part it flowed very smoothly and really held my interest.

Originality: 10/10

The only book that I've read that really has a plot that's all that similar is The Wish List by Eoin Colfer and even that book had some stark differences. You don't often find that there are such original novels, at least in my opinion. This could just be a sub-genre that I've completely missed, but I think that this is a very original novel.

Enjoyability: 9/10

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. DeCoteau definitely had a few good morals that he was trying to get across in this story, but I feel as though they came to the story naturally instead of having to be forced. I also think the fact that this was so enjoyable was very important, as I believe it deals with many touch issues that are very important.

End: 9/10

Unexpected and excellent, although the last page seemed a little cliche.

Overall: 45/50

Get Spree for the Kindle and Smashwords.

Has anyone read the book? Am I just completely missing a sub-genre? Let me know what you think of this review in the comments or suggest an independent book for me to read!