3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Imprudent: not showing care for the consequences of an action. Zeal: great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective… With such a hefty title, one could expect something great, maybe even magnificent! In more ways than one, Imprudent Zeal does live up to its name; however there are still some loose ends that may need knitting back into place. Regardless of the loose ends, you can still expect an insightful book that looks into the lives of many different characters over a span of 53 years in areas all across the United States. My score is 3 out of 4 stars.
Imprudent Zeal begins with the character Scully MacDonald who just wants to find his greater calling in life. Scully is thoroughly religious although we see dramatic changes in his beliefs as he finds failure and tragedy too hard to cope. Way down in Mississippi, we are introduced to Lane Feltz, the second of three main characters. Lane goes through a tough time as he tries to figure out his sexuality and finally being forced from his childhood home, he makes his way to New York where he eventually meets up with Scully MacDonald. The third, and final, is McKenzie MacDonald who lives on the west coast. From birth her situation looks bleak, but a strange man comes along who will change the course of her life forever. Only once McKenzie has met him does she finally get the chance to make something of herself.
Alec Clayton skillfully splits the book into three major sections - Scully’s life, Lane’s life, and McKenzie’s life – without letting the readers forget about the others. Scully’s section is hardly interrupted, but Lane and McKenzie share a portion of their sections with each other and occasionally Scully. I feel like this occasional reminder helps the reader to remember that the story is not entirely about one character or another, but really all three.
The oddest thing about Imprudent Zeal is that at first glance there isn’t an overarching storyline. It would seem that each chapter is a book in and of itself – each chapter begins with the introduction of a problem, the climax, and finally a solution. Only a couple of the chapters ended on a cliffhanger that really gripped me. That, to me, was the biggest downfall of the book. I didn’t feel compelled to continue reading. Most of the time, a chapter ending meant a change in point-of-view, so I often felt that one character’s story was finished only to find a few chapters down the line that it really wasn’t. Although I felt this way about the flow of the story, I did feel like the ending of the book was a perfect end that had not been achievable by stopping the book on any other chapter.
There were less than a handful of spots in the book that seemed too crazy to happen, like the natural flow of the character’s thought was suddenly thrown in a different direction (a certain moment that Lane and McKenzie shared comes to mind) or when Alec Clayton seems to drone on and on about certain characteristics, which thankfully didn’t happen but once or twice. Other than these spots, the biggest criticism I can give is on the spelling and grammar errors. None of these errors were significant enough to detract from the meaning, but they did manage to distract me enough to pull me out of the story briefly.
Again, my score is 3 out of 4 stars. I gave this book a recommendable star count because I truly felt like this book is worth taking a half-day out of your usual schedule to read this book. I didn’t give it a 4 out of 4 stars because, spelling and grammar aside, I felt like the story could have had more to it that made me feel like I want to keep reading it. In some parts of the book, it felt like I only kept reading because I wanted to regain that feeling I had when I first began the book. The beginning was phenomenal, but somewhere along the line Imprudent Zeal lost its appeal only to be redeemed by the ending. On a final note, the reader should beware that the story contains vulgar language and scenery. I did not feel put off by the vulgarity of the book, although some people have less tolerance for such things. Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed my review as much as I enjoyed writing it!
******
Imprudent Zeal
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like alicia_fountain's review? Post a comment saying so!
