Review of Burly

[Lunga Mhlongo]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Burly" by Paul Drewitt.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The story is about a teenage felon named Jackson who just got out of Juvenile Detention for burning a local church, and his grandfather Sammy, who is supposed to be his father figure.

I love Paul Drewitt’s slang writing. I loved his style and I found him to be a master in this kind of writing. He could be a professor at a writing school or college and teach writers how to write in this kind of style. He is a definite word magician, or in his case, a word mechanic and his writing method is Burly.

I did not like the book; this is because it was confusing in terms of who is focused on between Sammy and Jackson. In the beginning, it suggested that the latter would be the center of focus, but as I read, the focus suddenly shifted to the former who made it sound like he was just taking us on a quick trip down memory lane, which we would soon return to and refocus on our “supposed to be protagonist,” but that didn’t happen. For me, I think the long past-reminiscing smothered the book plot and trapped the author into a web he couldn’t break free from. He got lost in the tell-tale and couldn't find his way back to Jacko. Nothing about the book was catchy, not the introduction, nor the body, and certainly not the conclusion. In a nutshell, this book contained zero climaxes, zero thrill, and zero fun.

This has made me give the author a rating of two out of four stars. Though I approve of his writing style and word usage, I hated the book. Reading it proved to be a task I had to remind myself of over and over again. I spent most of the time trying to figure out the storyline, where the book was headed and the reason it was written in the first place. And the worst thing he did, was failing to give his tale a proper ending and joining it together when he reverted us back to Sammy and Jackson. I couldn't tell if the ending was a happy one or not because it was photo finished, and it had a lot of missing parts.

The book is professionally edited concerning grammar, spelling, word usage, construction, style, and typos, with very minimal flaws. Way too little to detect. Much as I hated every minute of reading this book, I can still find it in me to recommend it to someone, or anybody for that matter. Because I believe that tastes are different for a reason and that a bad read could be a good one for someone else.

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Burly
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