Irrelevant Cheetah

I recently won a book giveaway on Paperback Writer. It was for a chick-lit book, Death Angel by Linda Howard. Now, chick-lit I normally avoid like some overused cliché, but for some reason I entered this contest. I figured since I was stuck in my writing, a change in my reading might help. I just finished the book a few days ago and thought I’d write my first review. Lucky you – you get to read it!

I won’t summarize the book here; you can follow the link to read the synopsis on the B&N website. Rather, I’ll give my impressions.

For whatever reason, I read this book from a writer’s perspective, rather than a reader’s perspective. It’s not a bad thing, by any means, and I assume that it’s because it’s not the genre I normally read. The result: I was pleasantly surprised, and I think it was good for me to read this.

The impression I came away with was that the book was simple. Again, that’s not a bad thing. There are two main characters, and two or three very minor supporting characters, and that’s it. For some reason, most of the novels I’ve read have had many characters, with interwoven story lines and sub-plots and character arcs and so forth. Probably because of that, that’s the way I attempted to write my first novel, and I think I over-reached my grasp for a first book. By reading Death Angel, I learned that you don’t need to hear about minor storylines and the other stuff. This book follows, for the most part, the main character as she progresses through the plot. First she does A, then she does B, then C happens and she reacts by doing D, and so on. And the thing is that it works. It kept me turning pages to see what would happen next, and that’s my definition of a successful storytelling. Deep and meaningful? No. Entertaining? Yes.

Bottom line: if you’re not normally into this genre then you may not like it. It was an engaging read, however, and I have no problem recommending it.

Next on my list: Catch-22.