Review by cxsimpson -- Guardian of Deceit
Posted: 11 Aug 2020, 19:58
[Following is a volunteer review of "Guardian of Deceit" by William H. Coles.]
After the death of his parents and amid the failing health of his previous guardian, teenager Darwin is sent to live with his celebrity cousin. While at first it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime, the boy quickly realizes this new life is not going to be what he was expecting. This book follows his life from age seventeen into adulthood. His life is not easy, nor are the lives of the people he comes in contact with.
I rate Guardian of Deceit by William H. Coles 2 out of 4 stars . I did not think it was bad and there were definitely interesting parts. However, as a whole, I felt it was too fast-paced with little character development. Darwin goes from a teenager to a doctor and hardly changes at all. The other characters are similar in their lack of growth. The book also cuts from one storyline to another one quickly. Darwin’s cousin, one of the main characters in the beginning, is hardly mentioned in the second half.
However, several of those storylines are interesting, even if they come and go quickly. Some of Darwin’s friends have their own plotlines where the reader is able to learn a little more about them individually. One of my favorite characters was Sweeney, Darwin’s close friend and his cousin’s wife. She was a celebrity who didn’t care much for the spotlight and I always enjoyed when she showed up at the house.
There are a few instances where the author describes women in an unnecessarily sexual manner. On page 96, he says, “Without her makeup, her thin but still shapely legs poking out from her robe, her delicate hands clasped together as if in prayer under her head, she looked like a vulnerable, half-starved runaway.” The woman he is referring to in this passage is visibly upset about something that happened to her, but the author is sexualizing her even then. There were a few other instances like this one, including a couple’s sex life in which the girl gets no pleasure.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoy realistic fiction. Much of what happens in this book does happen in real life, even if it only happens to an elite group of people. Darwin’s cousin is a professional football player and the cousin’s wife is a popstar. Most people cannot relate to those exact experiences, but they can relate to other things the characters deal with.
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Guardian of Deceit
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes | on Smashwords
After the death of his parents and amid the failing health of his previous guardian, teenager Darwin is sent to live with his celebrity cousin. While at first it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime, the boy quickly realizes this new life is not going to be what he was expecting. This book follows his life from age seventeen into adulthood. His life is not easy, nor are the lives of the people he comes in contact with.
I rate Guardian of Deceit by William H. Coles 2 out of 4 stars . I did not think it was bad and there were definitely interesting parts. However, as a whole, I felt it was too fast-paced with little character development. Darwin goes from a teenager to a doctor and hardly changes at all. The other characters are similar in their lack of growth. The book also cuts from one storyline to another one quickly. Darwin’s cousin, one of the main characters in the beginning, is hardly mentioned in the second half.
However, several of those storylines are interesting, even if they come and go quickly. Some of Darwin’s friends have their own plotlines where the reader is able to learn a little more about them individually. One of my favorite characters was Sweeney, Darwin’s close friend and his cousin’s wife. She was a celebrity who didn’t care much for the spotlight and I always enjoyed when she showed up at the house.
There are a few instances where the author describes women in an unnecessarily sexual manner. On page 96, he says, “Without her makeup, her thin but still shapely legs poking out from her robe, her delicate hands clasped together as if in prayer under her head, she looked like a vulnerable, half-starved runaway.” The woman he is referring to in this passage is visibly upset about something that happened to her, but the author is sexualizing her even then. There were a few other instances like this one, including a couple’s sex life in which the girl gets no pleasure.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoy realistic fiction. Much of what happens in this book does happen in real life, even if it only happens to an elite group of people. Darwin’s cousin is a professional football player and the cousin’s wife is a popstar. Most people cannot relate to those exact experiences, but they can relate to other things the characters deal with.
******
Guardian of Deceit
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes | on Smashwords