Review by Elcha12 -- Yesterday by Samyann
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Elcha12
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- Latest Review: Yesterday by Samyann
Review by Elcha12 -- Yesterday by Samyann
[Following is a volunteer review of "Yesterday" by Samyann.]
3 out of 4 stars
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Yesterday is a captivating novel about a young woman, Amanda, who saved a police officer during a freak accident. While waiting for help to arrive Amanda feels a connection to an object she finds. With the help of the officer and loved family members Amanda goes on a life changing hunt to understand why this object feels so important to her. During her exploration Amanda finds out more about her past and the past of those affected by the civil war and the Great Fire of Chicago. Will she let her past and her obsession with this object affect her future with the police officer?
Yesterday starts of with the main character talking to her cat. Although the idea sounds great I feel the wording in the first paragraph muddies the conversation. “What can you say when somebody asks, ‘How did that make you feel?” She turned to the attentive gaze of her angora cat, still and black as a shadow. “That’s easy. I felt like tap dancing. And then I fired him. Oprah, my dear, you and I are officially finished with therapy (pg. 1).” She did not state her cat’s name was Oprah, so I believed she was stating she and another person was done with therapy. Another way to make this more coherent is to write “you and I are officially finished with therapy because I fired him.”
The author is great at being descriptive in the story. “She hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and wrinkled her nose at the pungent smell of diesel exhaust. A bus belched a hot, moist gust that whirled her skirt as it trundled past” (pg. 8). Sammyann, the author, has a great way of adding description so that it is balanced. The description used can help the reader picture Chicago even if they have never been to the city before.
I give yesterday a rating of 3 out of 4 starts. I give it a 3 because of the way the book starts off and some questions I had while reading it for the first time. On page 12 the officer believes that Amanda looks familiar to him. A few pages later she asks herself why she thought he looked familiar. This confused me as she never mentioned the officer looking familiar before. On page 25 Amanda says, “I can’t think of how it would be of any value to such a strait-laced outfit.” I cannot fathom how this sentence fits into the conversation she is having unless it has something to do with her job, which brings up another question. The beginning of the story talks about a business named Plethora, but it does not explain what plethora is. I later learn that Amanda works at plethora, that the company has clients and that Amanda writes an article for them, yet by the end of the book I am still confused as to what kind of business it is.
I do not give the book a rating of 2 stars because of the uniqueness of the story. I have never read a story that has followed one person’s life past and present as this story has. Despite the few questions that come up reading the first few chapters in this book the book is well written and has great historical content that was well researched. I believe for those who like books turned into movies this will be a great contender.
******
Yesterday
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3 out of 4 stars
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Yesterday is a captivating novel about a young woman, Amanda, who saved a police officer during a freak accident. While waiting for help to arrive Amanda feels a connection to an object she finds. With the help of the officer and loved family members Amanda goes on a life changing hunt to understand why this object feels so important to her. During her exploration Amanda finds out more about her past and the past of those affected by the civil war and the Great Fire of Chicago. Will she let her past and her obsession with this object affect her future with the police officer?
Yesterday starts of with the main character talking to her cat. Although the idea sounds great I feel the wording in the first paragraph muddies the conversation. “What can you say when somebody asks, ‘How did that make you feel?” She turned to the attentive gaze of her angora cat, still and black as a shadow. “That’s easy. I felt like tap dancing. And then I fired him. Oprah, my dear, you and I are officially finished with therapy (pg. 1).” She did not state her cat’s name was Oprah, so I believed she was stating she and another person was done with therapy. Another way to make this more coherent is to write “you and I are officially finished with therapy because I fired him.”
The author is great at being descriptive in the story. “She hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and wrinkled her nose at the pungent smell of diesel exhaust. A bus belched a hot, moist gust that whirled her skirt as it trundled past” (pg. 8). Sammyann, the author, has a great way of adding description so that it is balanced. The description used can help the reader picture Chicago even if they have never been to the city before.
I give yesterday a rating of 3 out of 4 starts. I give it a 3 because of the way the book starts off and some questions I had while reading it for the first time. On page 12 the officer believes that Amanda looks familiar to him. A few pages later she asks herself why she thought he looked familiar. This confused me as she never mentioned the officer looking familiar before. On page 25 Amanda says, “I can’t think of how it would be of any value to such a strait-laced outfit.” I cannot fathom how this sentence fits into the conversation she is having unless it has something to do with her job, which brings up another question. The beginning of the story talks about a business named Plethora, but it does not explain what plethora is. I later learn that Amanda works at plethora, that the company has clients and that Amanda writes an article for them, yet by the end of the book I am still confused as to what kind of business it is.
I do not give the book a rating of 2 stars because of the uniqueness of the story. I have never read a story that has followed one person’s life past and present as this story has. Despite the few questions that come up reading the first few chapters in this book the book is well written and has great historical content that was well researched. I believe for those who like books turned into movies this will be a great contender.
******
Yesterday
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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Latest Review: Yesterday by Samyann
