Review by masterhawk88 -- Temptation Trials Part I

masterhawk88 · Post by **masterhawk88** » 16 Jun 2017, 12:58

[Following is a volunteer review of "Temptation Trials Part I" by B. Truly.]

1 out of 4 stars

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Temptation Trials Part I by B. Truly is a romance novel set in the near-future United States renamed United Origins after world war three. I went into this book eager to see how the author had imagined the post-WW3 US and finished it with a sense of profound disappointment bordering on outright disgust. The writing is easy to read, even enjoyable, but the devil is in the details, and the details in this book seem horribly poorly researched and completely unbelievable.

Centering on two couples, Temptation Trials tells the story of Cali and Stephani being teenagers in a world ruled by a single dictator. Falling in love with their boyfriends Kincade and Tobias respectively, and wanting to escape the fate of state mandated arranged marriage, they sign up for a game show that if they win will allow them to marry the men they love.

The pacing of the book wasn’t necessarily bad, but to my mind spent far too much setting up the romance between the two couples and showing their daily lives. Fully the first third of the book and a bit more is spent on this. While it wasn’t a bad read, I did feel it was important enough to bring as several scenes could have been cut or shortened and still brought across the characters personalities and relationships well. Once the trials began the tempo of the plot flowed much more smoothly.

I found the characters likable and believable at first. B. Truly takes the time to really let you get to understand how their minds work. Each of the four main protagonists has a distinct personality that honestly felt like they were people I could have gone to high school or college with. With that in mind, it saddens me to say I absolutely hated all four of them by the end of the book. Every one of them takes actions that are complete betrayals to their lover despite being fully aware that was the intent of the trials. It makes them come across as incredibly weak willed. When all was said and done the only character I actually liked was Zion, the man Cali betrayed Kincade with, and the only one to show any real self-control.

As I mentioned before, the devil is in the details, and the details set my teeth on edge. While many are seemingly unimportant, when taken together they make the world the novel is set in completely unbelievable. This naturally rolls over to making the plot unbelievable as well. The book would have you believe WW3's start, end, and a totalitarian worldwide dictatorship taking over will all happen in less than a decade. While I can believe the war will last less than a decade, it’s the last bit that rustled my jimmies. The logistics alone would entail at least a decade of work before a single man could take over the world. This isn’t even taking into account governments and populations resisting. Furthermore, the areas listed as devastated by the war hold very little military or economic importance while population and power centers seem unscathed. Along with other such details, I was thrown out of the world early on, and the book never recovered.

I give Temptation Trials Part I by B. Truly 1 out of 4 stars. I cannot recommend this book to anyone. Even potential readers who may find the protagonists betraying their lovers forgivable, or even enjoyable, have much better options in the vast world of literature out there. While the characters start out as enjoyable, and the writing isn’t bad there are just far too many issues with the world it’s set in.

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Temptation Trials Part I
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Rosemary Okoko · Post by **Rosemary Okoko** » 29 Jun 2017, 04:17

There seem to be very many negative issues with this book. I have not yet read it and cannot comment much on it. Thank you for being very honest in your review.