What I've Been Reading:'To the 5th Power' by Shirin Dubbin

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher for an honest review.

I didn't actually finish this book. I got about 10% of the way in and simply couldn't go any further. I loved the idea - a retired superhero who has to go back into action to help catch three super-villains but I just couldn't get in to the story. It wasn't that it was poorly written or anything, it was more that it wasn't as detailed as it should have been. I felt almost as though the writer had scrimped on description and plot in order to keep the word count down. I might return to it eventually but at the moment it's just not my thing.

What I've Been Reading:'Forgotten' by Sarah J Pepper

Okay, so I didn't finish this book. I don't know if it's just that I'm not in the right mood for it or what but I just found that I wasn't as sucked into the story as I'd hoped I'd be.

The premise sounds great and the protagonist Winnie is pretty cool - a foster kid with psychosomatic visual problems, she sees her world in blurry shades of grey. And yet I just couldn't seem to keep track of what was going on. I felt almost as though I'd stepped into the middle of an on-going series and I should already know what Winnie's visions were about and what kind of supernatural being Jace was. I'm guessing all this stuff will become clear as the plot progresses but I'm a need-to-know-now kind of gal and I like things to at least make a little bit of sense to me.

I probably would have been more inspired to keep reading if the book had been more thoroughly edited. As it stands, I'd say that it could probably do with at least another proof-read and redraft. There were multiple grammar and syntax errors and sentences that didn't make sense. I almost began to get a sense of how it must feel to be dyslexic and have the words seemingly re-arrange themselves on the page.

I think my gay-ness may have also got in the way of me enjoying this book more. I'll admit that I kind of got fed up of hearing about how fit Jace is, about his muscles and the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Don't get me wrong, heterosexuality in fiction is not a problem for me but I found it irritating in this case (kind of like the whole topless Jacob thing in the Twilight books...).

Anyway, it's not that this is a bad book. It's just that it's not my kind of book. I'll probably re-visit it in the future with fresh eyes and a clear mind and see how it goes because despite how I feel I really do want to find out what's going on with Jace and the big guy that follows him round.