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Unfortunately, keeping the book from dragging was as much of a negative as it was a positive. The pace at which the book as a whole and each story moved kept the stories from being sufficiently detailed. It was especially bad in a few of the stories, when weeks at a time would pass and reads would get no detail on them other than being told that time had passed. This is the case in most short stories, I know, but the author could have pulled it off better. The way he went about it kept me from being satisfied enough to continue reading without pause. I would have to stop, think about how the time had passed, wonder what had happened because no information was given on that time, and then continue. It got very old after awhile.
That was not the only thing that kept from enjoying On a Drive with Life, though. In fact one of the biggest problems was the grammar and phrasing used in it. I understand that this collection may not have been originally written or published in English, but as an English reader, the phrasing and grammar really made me cringe. It got bad enough at times that I could not follow whichever short story I was reading and didn’t know for some time what was going on. This also prevented the dialogue from sounding real to me. The relationships presented in this collection were mostly friendships, family relationships, or the intense relationship between enemies. Each of these relationships warrants different tones when the two partners are speaking, but each line of dialogue, no matter who the speakers were, felt flat and sounded the same as the last to me. I feel this must have been as much a fault of the author as it was the grammar. Perhaps the author didn’t have a grasp on how to go about making the relationships between characters feel real through their dialogue. With editing and practice this could be revised, but what I read didn’t get that kind of thought or attention and it was truly disappointing.
Something else that annoyed me while reading was there were thirteen different stories in this book and in each one, the main character was almost exactly the same. A male, teenage or somewhat younger, struggling with poverty or family issues. In order to have such similar main characters, the author needed to breathe a new life, a new personality, into each, and that didn’t happen. Each character sounded and felt the same. Not only was it aggravating, but it was dull. The final thing that I did not like about this book was each story ended in the death of someone. Again, this could have been fine, as death does touch a real person’s life at some point and it is important and heartbreaking. Once again, though, the author simply didn’t pull it off right. Almost all of them seemed unnecessary. They neither needed to happen nor did they make me feel sorry for the main characters, so what was the point of them?
For these reasons, I give On a Drive with Life 1 out of 4 stars. I’m sure there are readers who would enjoy at least a few of the stories in this collection, but in its current state I simply could not recommend it to anyone. For English speaking readers, it needs editing so that it is clearer and easier to read. All readers, though, deserve real, interesting characters, good dialogue, and better description. Perhaps if these things were improved upon, the book would deserve a higher rating, but as it is now, it does not.
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