4.5- First I have to start of mentioning the true uniqueness behind this story. Good vs Evil. Light vs Dark. What happens when you look into the eye of a person and see everything? This was such a fast paced, twisted, suspenseful, book full of so many twists and turns. The characters in the book especially the little girl was brilliant and a awesome person. Thank you for allowing me to read and write about this book.

The premise of the book was interesting and seemed to have a clear direction to where the story was going. However, it could have been more than what was presented.

To start with something I did like was the young girl, Miranda. Because she was born nonverbal, she uses sign language as her way to communicate. This added a nice level to story and diversified the book some. She was probably my favorite character, and I would have loved even more scenes with her.

In general, though, not many of the characters were given enough details and development to make you care about them. They were all one-dimensional, with the exception of maybe Keith. However, even then, it was hard to really care about what ended up happening.

When looking at the plot, it could have been improved, as well. Yes, the story was “fast-paced”, but only because there was a lot of dialogue and it was a fairly short read. The author jumps back and forth from the present to the past with certain characters, and I found the transitions throughout the book were abrupt and interrupted the flow of the story. At times, it was difficult to distinguish if the story was taking place in the past or present. For instance, one scene when Kevin remembers his rough childhood and his abusive mom, it starts with him playing video games with his brother. This could have been true in the past or present, so I had to re-read that section and others to figure it out. Perhaps a different font, italicizing the words, or typing in the year would have made it clearer and less frustrating. Also, I found the climax of the story to be anticlimactic, and it ended abruptly.

Not only did I find some of the characters and plot frustrating, I found the use of God somewhat out-of-place. For about half the book, God wasn’t mentioned, so when He begins to fill a lot the book’s pages, I found it surprising. This could have been fine, but it didn’t make sense to me because there wasn’t anything big that happened in order for Keith to suddenly change. In turn, McKenzie’s gift wasn’t really used for most of the book. It was kind of disappointing since she ties in with God and could have made the “good vs. evil” theme more exciting.

For technical issues, the voice that Keith hears, “Kevin”, was confusing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the two names were extremely similar that for a while I had to keep reminding myself which voice was which. Also, when Keith and “Kevin” spoke to each other, there was nothing to distinguish one from the other. It would have better if “Kevin’s” voice was italicized or maybe a different font, otherwise when reading “Kevin’s” voice, the words just seemed like description.

Lastly, there were several errors throughout here. Missing/Added quotation marks, using Keith’s name instead of Larry’s (page 88), consistency of “Good night” and “Goodnight” (page 61), and others. These are easy fixes, but distracting nonetheless.

In general, the story/dialogue was simple, was lacking emotionally, and its presentation was disappointing. It’s only because I liked Miranda and could tell the author had a clear direction of where she wanted the story to go that I give this a two instead of a one-star. I don’t know if I would recommend this book in the state that it’s in right now.