Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Flukes by Nichol Chase ~ Review

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Source:  Received eBook copy from the author in exchange for a fair and honest review.

From Goodreads:

Meena has a secret guarded closely by her family—a secret as dangerous as the sea, and buried just as deep. When court appointed community service workers are assigned to Flukes, the family-owned animal sanctuary, everyone is on high alert. It doesn’t help that Meena finds herself attracted to sexy-as-sin Blake Weathering, one of the new workers. If he wasn’t so distracting, she might be able to land Flukes a much-needed cruise line contract.

Blake Weathering, the first in his family to attend public school, has developed a tough image. Unfortunately it lands him in trouble. Now banned from his high school graduation ceremony, getting his diploma is dependent upon a community service gig cleaning fish crap. No diploma, no trust fund fortune—and no way to escape his overbearing father. The last thing he needs is the distraction of a mysterious girl with teal eyes who pulls at his heart strings.

When Blake discovers Meena’s secret, they are both thrown into a desperate search for information about her past. Two worlds pull them in opposite directions, and they will have to fight to hold onto all that really matters.


My Thoughts:






2 1/2 stars - Tons of fabulousiness but a few probs

Did I love the strong spirit that is Meena? Absolutely! She rocks for sure. Totally love the idea of her story, how she comes to be part of her family, how dependent she is on the water, how she is dedicated to Flukes and the animals there, all of it. She verbally battles with Blake and they are so fun to watch. Speaking of Blake, I love his bad boy image but in reality he's totally protective and REAL. Together they are so cute. Of course, they can't be together for this and that reason but it's fun watching them trying to resist each other.

I loved the world that the author builds. It's unique and rang believable. Love the idea of the mer walking among us!! That part rocked too.

So, by now you're wondering why this book only got 2 1/2 stars? Well, can I just say that I REALLY wish I had got to beta read this one. A few tweaks and this book would have totally rocked my world.

There were some editing errors/typos that kept popping up. I could have overlooked that if there weren't other things that bugged me. Some pretty serious inconsistencies came up. One concerned a date that was clearly a week ago but was talked about as if it had happened the night before. There were a couple of dangling plot lines that left me frustrated. I like things to be nice and tied up at the end. But I'm still wondering why they....never mind.

This book also did something that really frustrates me. I like books that show me why instead of summarizing with conclusions. At only about 160 pages, some of those summarizes could have been included as scenes and the book would have been so much better. I think adding some more scenes with Blake's dad would have been good too. He's characterized as this overbearing father but we only see him a couple of times. I would have liked to see more of him to make Blake's decisions carry more weight.

Then there was the overall flavor of the book. It started feeling very much like a YA book. Then it moved into what felt like New Adult and finally landed very much into the adult area. That means, of course, that there is a very HIGH steam level. And, while I really did like that part of the book, I didn't care for the mixed messages it gave.

So I really, really do not like writing reviews like this. I much prefer telling authors this privately after a beta read in time for them to fix it. AND I totally admit that there are A LOT of people that LOVE this book. So, make sure you check out some of their reviews below, just to be fair. 


Please note that the author has let me know that the book has since been edited and the errors/typos as well as the time consistency problems have been fixed.

 

5 comments:

  1. Hey you can't love them all! I appreciate your honesty and I think it's really cool that you link to blogs that had the opposite reaction! :)

    Amber Elise @ Du Livre

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  2. Great review Val. I know how you feel about writing reviews like this. I usually don't only because if I feel like a book will be less than a 3 I usually won't even finish it and I won't review a book I don't finish. On occasion I will try to get through a book hoping it will get better and it ends up not great for me though. Thanks for your honesty. We can't all like every book we read.

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  3. Ah.. sucks that this wasnt a great read for you. It must have been hard for you to review this.. Thanks for the honest and lovely review!
    - Farah @ MajiBookshelf

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  4. Sorry this one didn't hit the spot. Hopefully the revised version clears things up. Nice review, Val!

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  5. Awe. I'm bummed you didn't love it. I really enjoyed it. :)

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