Review of The Learning Curve of Pain

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Chris Alex Powell
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Review of The Learning Curve of Pain

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[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Learning Curve of Pain" by Shawe Ruckus.]
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lewis Milken, a man who had lung cancer, sought the help of Changxi Yang, also known as Chance, to find out what happened to his sister, Emma. According to Lewis, his sister worked in Spain as a governess for a family. One day, he was sent a telegram that stated that his sister had died of tuberculosis. He feels there is something skeptical about it. Chance went to Spain to find out anything that might help him with the case. Although Emma was already dead, he was determined to find out what happened to her. While Chance was still working on this case, another came up. Another man named Nigel sought his help to find out how Daniele died. Apparently, she was killed by a man who delivered pizza to her. What is shocking about the whole thing, however, is that she didn’t order the pizza. Was Chance able to solve these mysteries? Was he able to find anything on them?

I absolutely enjoyed this book. At first, I didn’t like the pacing of the story because it was slow; however, as I continued reading, I understood why the author made it so. Because of the book's pacing, I was able to understand the story. You know how you eat food slowly to avoid indigestion? That’s how I felt while reading this book. The author took his time dishing out each event that happened in the story, allowing me to fully digest all that occurred within the story. The author was also able to develop his characters. I mean, even the smallest of characters were well developed, and this was all achieved through the story's pacing.

This is a mystery novel, and it felt as if I participated in solving the mystery because of the way the author narrated his story. Also, the author's descriptive skill is admirable. It was as though the book contained pictures because his words were his pictures. He described the places and characters so vividly that I was able to create a picture of them in my imagination. Felipe was my favorite character. Although he annoyed me at times because of his verbose nature, I was able to learn a lot from him. I also learned a lot from this book. I learned about things I already knew and things I had never heard of before. I believe everyone knows what a murder and a parliament are, right? Well, I discovered another meaning of these words that made me chuckle. I was quite surprised because never in my life had I thought that the words would mean anything apart from what we all know them to be. I also learned about some countries’ cultures, like China and Japan. I love how the author included the meaning of the foreign words he used in the story at the end of the book.

I found it a bit hard to keep up with the characters at first because there were so many of them, but I got the hang of it after reading it for a while. I started figuring out who was who and who was related to whom. The author also used a lot of ambiguous terms in the story. I see this as both a positive and a negative. I would regard it as a positive because I was able to learn a lot of words like nescient, harangue, insouciant, etc., and a negative because the terms were many and I didn’t like how I was going back and forth between the dictionary and the story.

I rate The Learning Curve of Pain by Shawe Ruckus 5 out of 5 stars. The negative aspects I stated above are not enough reason for me to deduct a star from my rating. I gave it a full rating because the positive aspects outweighed the negatives. The book was also professionally edited. I recommend this book to lovers of murder mysteries. I read the third book in the series before this without knowing that both books were part of a series, and I must note here that I love how independent the third book was of the second. Having read two books by the author, I commend his ability to create a good mystery storyline. I am looking forward to reading more books from this author.

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The Learning Curve of Pain
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Amy Luman
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Post by Amy Luman »

I am so glad to see this review. Several times I have seen this book an bypassed it because I didn’t know what to expect and now I do. It’s also great to know about the descriptions involved and the pacing of the novel. Thanks!
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NetMassimo
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Post by NetMassimo »

Feeling immersed in a novel's story is terrific, so this murder mystery got me interested for this reason and because it seems well-constructed. Thank you for your great review!
Ciao :)
Massimo
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