3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
In Guardian of Deceit, we meet Darwin. His parents died when he was younger and he spent many years living with his aunt, being given an allowance and living expenses. His aunt gets older and is unable to take care of Darwin anymore, so he is sent to live with his cousin, famous football player Luther Pinnelli. At Luther's there is no allowance and not a lot of love. Although Darwin is positive he wants to go to medical school and has always been in a private institution, Luther tells Darwin that he must earn this privilege and places him in a public school. This does not deter Darwin from his dreams.
The story follows Darwin from when he first moves in with Luther, to well into his adult life. Throughout this time we see Darwin make many new friends, act upon old romances, fall in and out of love, etc. We also get a look into Luther’s life as a professional athlete – being able to get any girl he wants, his spiral into gambling, alcohol and drug use, etc.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars because there were many parts of this book that I liked. Many storylines were well written out. But that's the problem, there were too many storylines, which is why I could not give it a 4 star rating. They all could have worked together, but when going from one part of a story to another, it was as if we were missing complete chapters. From one chapter to another we were constantly having to assume someone got married, divorced, found a job, lost a job, etc. They were almost always significant things that definitely deserved to be explicitly mentioned. It was almost as if the author were jumping through many years of Darwin’s life without giving us any sort of warning. One moment he is a high schooler and the next he’s talking marriage. It was quite difficult to keep up with.
Jumping from one story to another was difficult for another reason as well. It wasn't always apparent who the third-person narrator was focusing on. Though most of the story was focused on Darwin, we would sometimes get information inside other character's heads, with no previous indication that this would be happening. At one point I read through an entire chapter before realizing we were seeing into Helen’s head instead of Darwin’s.
This book had great ideas for a story. I always wanted to keep reading and see what was going to happen next. The editing could use some work - chapters added, grammar revised, etc. which is why if given the opportunity for half stars, this book would be given 2.5 stars out of 4.
******
Guardian of Deceit
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes | on Smashwords
Like jaymecarruthers's review? Post a comment saying so!