2 out of 4 stars
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Aloha Kahuna Soul is a contemporary thriller novel by Rick Pruett that follows the story of Alika Kealoha, a local islander in Hawaii, after he wakes up in the hospital after surviving a shark attack. From there, the story follows his recovery and investigations of mysteries of and around his home. His discoveries end up placing him in danger and in the middle of a lot of deceit and lies, but also end up prompting him to find closure about some unresolved issues of his past.
The description of the book had me curious from the start, but despite my initial interest I unfortunately had a hard time getting into the story. The opening scene is compelling enough; setting the scene as well as raising some questions about the surroundings. What made it difficult to really get into was the lack of flow in the writing - a lot of the phrasing of sentences sounded very static and stiff, making them somewhat uncomfortable to read. There were a considerable amount of very noticeable grammatical errors at the beginning and some less noticeable mixing up of tenses - but both of these did improve in the second half of the book and the reading experience of the story improved greatly along with this. Unfortunately, a lot of the sentences were stiff and static even through to the end, making it difficult to follow along with and be fully immersed in the action and events of the story.
There are also a few parts of the story's plot that I felt had the potential to be very interesting, but neglected to provide further explanation and expansion. This unfortunately made them feel glossed over and rushed. Towards the end of the story, the pace sped up considerably - the way that some events worked out seemed believable, but left me confused as to how the narrative had moved along so quickly. Many events really did feel rushed and sped up - and other, smaller events, that were given the same/similar amounts of detail and description as the more plot relevant ones, ended up feeling jarring and out of place in comparison.
When I began to read the book, I had to backtrack and reread a few sections because they were difficult to fully comprehend due to the grammatical errors and stiffness of the sentences. While these improved towards the middle of the book, I found myself needing to backtrack and reread sections near the end due to the fast pace.
I also had a difficult time liking the protagonist. I did not end up particularly disliking him, but from the beginning to the ending of the story I did not have any strong feelings about his character. However, Alika's goals and quest was interesting enough and distracted from my indifference towards him as a character. I found myself much more drawn to the setting and course of the plot rather than the character that propelled it along. I also cannot say that I ended up being particularly captivated by any of the other characters either, since many of them did not make enough appearances to give enough of an indication of their character, and/or felt like they were put there simply for the gratification of the protagonist (which was frustrating and disappointing).
There was also some moral ambiguity involving Alika and some characters that he confronts in the story - especially towards the end. Usually, I would be very interested in this, but, in this story, the potential for expansion that this had was glossed over and not given as much time as it could have been. However, the action and events of the story really held potential and interest, despite some parts not being expanded on and feeling rather incomplete. These particular sections are near the conclusion of the story so I can understand that there was not a huge amount of time for them to get further development - but it did end up feeling somewhat rushed and unfinished.
All in all, I cannot say that this is a book that I enjoyed as much as I would have liked to. I think that the book definitely had potential and that it would have been more enjoyable to read had some sentences (especially during the scenes with a lot of action and tension) been rephrased. If the overall writing had been polished up a bit more, I feel like my enjoyment of the book would have increased a lot.
However, despite my criticisms of it, I did not dislike the book and did end up appreciating the story for what it was. I cannot really imagine recommending it to anyone specific that I know, but at the same time I certainly wouldn't dissuade against reading it; it was worth investing the time that it took to read. It was interesting from the beginning and I am glad that I had the opportunity to read and review it.
In conclusion, I rate Aloha Kahuna Soul 2 out of 4 stars.
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Aloha Kahuna Soul
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