1 out of 4 stars
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The Time Walkers tells the story of two families who discovered--and drank from--the fountain of youth at the turn of the twentieth century. Over one-hundred years later, this small band of immortals struggle to make a living in an era where proof of identification is everything, and vigilantly fight to protect the location of the fountain to keep others from enduring their fate.
When I downloaded this book for review, I had very high hopes. The story seemed promising, but unfortunately turned out to be a huge disappointment. I will discuss my issues with this book in the following paragraphs.
The biggest problem with the story is the writing itself. The book was extremely difficult to read because of the numerous run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and abruptly-ended paragraphs (sometimes occurring mid-sentence). Additionally, the authors did not format the dialogue properly, and most of the time I could not tell which character was speaking. There were also many instances of words that were misspelled in a manner that would not be caught by spell-check (such as spelling medieval as mid evil), as well as homonym mix-ups (such as the use of shoot when the authors clearly meant chute).
The plot itself was horribly confusing, with many poorly-executed twists that left me befuddled and backtracking to figure out if I'd missed something. The outcomes of the same events were frequently repeated throughout the novel (as though the reader needed constant reminding of what had transpired), and important details of specific events were often revealed out of sequence with the timeline of the story. To add icing to the proverbial cake, the authors frequently departed from the story altogether on rambling tangents that served no identifiable purpose.
The characters were flat and lifeless, and the authors provided no specifics about their physical appearances other than race or ethnicity, and even then this information was not usually given until long after a character had been introduced. I was disappointed by the lack of physical details, but more so by the over-emphasis on race in this novel. While it was important in some parts of the story (there are events that take place during segregation, for example), I also encountered examples of racial stereotypes that I found unsettling.
I did not enjoy reading this book and rate it 1 out of 4 stars. Please understand that I did not take any pleasure in writing this review. I realize that the authors worked hard on this novel, but the problems with it are too numerous for me to recommend to anyone. I fear that only a complete rewrite with the aid of a skilled editor can help this book.
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The Time Walkers
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jk that's an ode to misspelling.
