Kindle Freebie Book Review

New Jersey's Famous Turnpike Witch by Brad Abruzzi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the premise of this book, but must admit there were times I felt my attention wandering. While I tend to attribute this inability to remain focused on the storytelling approach, I'm not sure that's entirely fair. There were some things to admire, things that other readers may find inspired, but I felt were slightly overdone.

First, this book is not afraid to skip around the timeline. Jumps forward, backward, and sideways occur with regularity.

The main character is majorly flawed. There's a reason she becomes known as the Turnpike Witch, which I refuse to put down here as I don't want to spoil anything for those who may chance to stumble across the review before reading the book for themselves. I hate spoilers, so I don't want to be guilty of springing them on anyone else.

In between all the anti-chronological viewpoint jumps, there was something very interesting going on with what I deem to be the author's message on mental health, politics, and even the perils of fandom.

If I have any real constructive criticism, it is this: the story could have been tightened by deleting a few extraneous scenes. Now, don't get me wrong, the author skillfully manipulated the English language. The story was well written; I don't remember any typos or gross grammatical errors.

And now I feel kind of bad about my 3-star rating. I think another reader, one more patient than myself, would have given it a much higher score.

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