3 out of 4 stars
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Darwin Hastings, the leading character in William H. Coles’ Guardian of Deceit, begins his adventures upon first sitting down in the airplane that will take him to his new home in the city of New York. The reader is privileged to delve into Darwin’s life, smiling at his accomplishments and frowning at his mistakes, watching him fall in and out of love, and walking beside him as he discovers his way in life. The heart and character of Darwin is easy for anyone to fall in love with, as I’m sure many have.
Right off the bat, I was laughing out loud. In some parts, my jaw actually dropped in utter shock of an event or an action one of the character’s had taken. I was completely immersed in Darwin’s world, and I have no compunctions when I say that I binge-read the whole thing. From the beginning, the reader is aware that Darwin is ambitious, and he dreams of becoming a doctor. Throughout the book, as Darwin’s hard work and commitment to learning pays off, I, as a fellow student, found myself inspired by him to take my studies more seriously.
There were, however, a few aspects of the novel that were confusing and unnecessary. For example, a common occurrence throughout the whole book was the use of choppy, illiterate sentences. This showed up specifically in dialogues. Oftentimes the sentences were not grammatically complete and it was hard to follow along with the characters’ train of thought. Furthermore, another issue often appeared concerning the fluidity of dialogue. In nearly every conversation, there would be a comma after a word, a quotation mark to note that the sentence was half finished, and then a two or more sentence explanation of some sort about what the character was doing. By the time the character started talking again, I had completely forgotten what the last thing he had said was.
It is mainly because of these two reasons that I give the book a 3 out of 4 rating. The other reason is that I spotted a few minor errors when it came to sentencing structure, and because the title just didn’t seem to fit the book at all. You could even say that it was deceiving.
Near the middle of the book, a lot of sappy situations began appearing. Sometimes I’d sit back and chuckle because it was overly dramatic and just… sappy. However, I do fully realize that I am simply not a sappy-novel lover, but other people may have thoroughly enjoyed these aspects of the work.
Something else started happening near the middle of the book, and at first, I was a little bit confused: the POVs began to switch up. But as these changes kept occurring, I learned to roll with it and actually came to appreciate it. This way, I was able to see every aspect of Darwin’s life from different perspectives. Sometimes, the differing viewpoints had absolutely nothing to do with Darwin’s life. But they revealed things about the characters that Darwin had probably seen all along, but the reader couldn’t. Not until the POVs had been switched, at least. In fact, I probably learned more about Darwin himself when the POV wasn’t coming from him.
By the end of the book, I had to be honest with myself; a lot of decisions Darwin made in his life were decisions I just couldn’t bring myself to respect or approve of. This fact alone made me realize that I deeply respected the character of Darwin, as well as the author who had created him. Not approving of Darwin’s decisions meant that Darwin had become just as human to me as my next door neighbor, allowing me to judge him as such.
I would recommend this book to anyone who can afford to sit down for a few hours to engross him or herself in a novel. For anyone who enjoys books about the biography of a character, or for anyone who enjoyed watching Forrest Gump, for that matter. If you are someone who likes to get into people’s heads or to see characters come alive, this is the book for you.
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Guardian of Deceit
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