Review of Gifts of Today

[Andre Kemp]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Gifts of Today" by H. Van Steenburgh.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Gifts of Today by H. Van Steenburgh is an interesting, albeit trite novel. It begins with our protagonist, Harley, introducing herself, almost as though she’s writing a memoir. In fact, the novel often flits between voices, with some lines being delivered directly to the audience from Harley and others written in simple first person as one might expect. Harley is the recipient of several so-called gifts, though she keeps them a closely guarded secret, not just from other characters but from the reader as well. She finds other teenagers with “gifts” (i.e. powers such as teleportation, mind reading, and more), who she brings into her adopted family of gifted individuals. Their powers impact their daily lives, with Harley's, in particular, leading her to danger and injury more often than not. Towards the end, a message regarding their powers is conveyed from the goddess that bestowed them, setting them on a quest that we the reader will have to wait to see until the sequel is published.

Steenburgh does a good job of setting up that sequel, and in her debut novel builds the world around the characters as well as introduces their powers. In this way, the novel feels primarily like background information. While I’m not saying that nothing of interest happens, it largely feels inconsequential; almost like it is the first half of a book, as opposed to the first one in a series. And at only ~196 pages, it also reads as such. The characters are relatable in some ways, and their powers or gifts are all fairly unique to each other’s, which can certainly be challenging in this genre of writing. The story moves quickly, making for a quick, yet compelling read.

Unfortunately, the story is not compelling enough to really overlook the multitude of mistakes. Simple typos, lack of proper capitalization, and issues with verb tense agreement are all things that should have been caught by the editor. The number of mistakes (98 that I bookmarked in my e-book) makes the book almost unreadable. While all of the spelling and grammar mistakes should have been caught by the copy editor, there were also issues with continuity, and getting characters’ names wrong. Probably due to the fact that they have extremely similar names (John, another John, Joe, Jack, Jake, Mike, another Mike, Mark, etc), at times the wrong name is used, again making the story harder to follow than it needs to be.

Overall, I give this book just 2 out of 4 stars. The story certainly has some potential, although to be honest most of us don’t need another “group of teens with unexplained powers needs to keep their abilities hidden and save the world” on their bookshelves. Were it not for the incessant mistakes and obvious lack of professional editing, I probably would have given it 2 or perhaps even 3 stars.

The book is obviously intended for the young adult audience and does deliver on recounting life at that stage. Young adults around 14 and over can certainly enjoy this book, and those who still find the YA genre to be their go-to will certainly find it fits well into that category. It is a relatively easy read and certainly is accessible for most reading levels.

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Gifts of Today
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[Sopulu Ezidimma]

I consider this book interesting because it reminds me of one of my favourite movies. Thanks for the review.

[Amy Luman]

I would really like to know about Harley and her group of gifted friends. However, there seem to be too many error to make that possible. I can usually overlook a few errors and continue reading, but I think this is too much.

[Kulultu Sorale]

The book seems to be have a good storyline with the exception of the errors. The names of the characters could potentially confuse the readers. Great review nonetheless.