Review of Impact Zone
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Magnus Fawkes
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Review of Impact Zone
[Following is a volunteer review of "Impact Zone" by B.D. Roy.]
Impact Zone by B.D. Roy is a junior fiction novel that takes place in Australia. Three brothers are thrown into coping with their parents’ separation; and along the way they bond together and grow as people. The characters are strongly different but similar in a familial way at the same time. There are sibling struggles peppered into the story, along with the interpersonal relationships between each sibling and their parents. B.D. Roy tries to capture the essence of a quickly escaping youth, and while it doesn’t deliver all the time, the story is mildly entertaining. The main character Jack battles with emotions on a grand scale, from feeling small and depressed to being proud and wonderous, and even experiencing the first sparks of romantic love. Jack McHale struggles with girls, unlike his older and more successful college age brother James. This book has elements of danger; and captures the risk-taking aspect of teenagers jumping on the opportunity to have adventures. It is wistful in it’s portrayal of an endless summer living on the pristine beaches at the whim of the seas. Surfing plays a big role in this story, spreading across generations and friend groups, and the antagonists even have surfing in common with those who would wish to do them harm for encroaching on their territory.
The book pulls together surfing, family conflict, interpersonal bonding, and shared emotions into one single story. The characters are similar and different in the right ways; and as the book goes on we learn more about each character and how they are different from the rest. In example, the moment Jack received a family heirloom his grandfather owned was a very emotional time for him. The father-son dynamic I feel was the strongest element in this story and well delivered.
The whole book is slow to start. There is little to no background given to the story in the first few chapters. It has no foreplay before throwing us into the life of Jack, and kind of expects us to know the background already. We are left to fend for ourselves putting together who is who in the first several chapters. The language in particular the siblings use with one another is unrealistic, as well as the scene of an attempted mugging and the thought to use karate to fend off an attacker. I felt that annoyance of being thrown out of the cadence of the story by the words “goof around” instead of something more real. The relationships between brothers are unbelievable and forced at times, but not constantly.
The book illustrates a range of feelings from guilt and doubt to anger as the children imagine the “what if’s” of their parents’ choices. The struggles of a teenager may seem trivial to adults, but it can be refreshing to jump back into the day to day of someone younger just to reminisce. Or of course if the reader is younger, this book can be relatable in the characters trials.
Impact Zone is a strong work of fiction in the juvenile genre; pulling together surfing, family conflict, interpersonal bonding and shared emotions into one single story. Anyone who has experienced a fracture in the family, or in fact anyone who has been a teenager, will enjoy relating to the brothers McHale. I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars because the formatting made it hard to read, the characters were overall shallow, and the story was pretty slow. But it does have descriptive language for the background landscape and settings that I was satisfied with. I’d recommend this book to kids from broken homes going through coping with divorce, or an adult looking to pass a couple of hours.
******
Impact Zone
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on Smashwords
Impact Zone by B.D. Roy is a junior fiction novel that takes place in Australia. Three brothers are thrown into coping with their parents’ separation; and along the way they bond together and grow as people. The characters are strongly different but similar in a familial way at the same time. There are sibling struggles peppered into the story, along with the interpersonal relationships between each sibling and their parents. B.D. Roy tries to capture the essence of a quickly escaping youth, and while it doesn’t deliver all the time, the story is mildly entertaining. The main character Jack battles with emotions on a grand scale, from feeling small and depressed to being proud and wonderous, and even experiencing the first sparks of romantic love. Jack McHale struggles with girls, unlike his older and more successful college age brother James. This book has elements of danger; and captures the risk-taking aspect of teenagers jumping on the opportunity to have adventures. It is wistful in it’s portrayal of an endless summer living on the pristine beaches at the whim of the seas. Surfing plays a big role in this story, spreading across generations and friend groups, and the antagonists even have surfing in common with those who would wish to do them harm for encroaching on their territory.
The book pulls together surfing, family conflict, interpersonal bonding, and shared emotions into one single story. The characters are similar and different in the right ways; and as the book goes on we learn more about each character and how they are different from the rest. In example, the moment Jack received a family heirloom his grandfather owned was a very emotional time for him. The father-son dynamic I feel was the strongest element in this story and well delivered.
The whole book is slow to start. There is little to no background given to the story in the first few chapters. It has no foreplay before throwing us into the life of Jack, and kind of expects us to know the background already. We are left to fend for ourselves putting together who is who in the first several chapters. The language in particular the siblings use with one another is unrealistic, as well as the scene of an attempted mugging and the thought to use karate to fend off an attacker. I felt that annoyance of being thrown out of the cadence of the story by the words “goof around” instead of something more real. The relationships between brothers are unbelievable and forced at times, but not constantly.
The book illustrates a range of feelings from guilt and doubt to anger as the children imagine the “what if’s” of their parents’ choices. The struggles of a teenager may seem trivial to adults, but it can be refreshing to jump back into the day to day of someone younger just to reminisce. Or of course if the reader is younger, this book can be relatable in the characters trials.
Impact Zone is a strong work of fiction in the juvenile genre; pulling together surfing, family conflict, interpersonal bonding and shared emotions into one single story. Anyone who has experienced a fracture in the family, or in fact anyone who has been a teenager, will enjoy relating to the brothers McHale. I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars because the formatting made it hard to read, the characters were overall shallow, and the story was pretty slow. But it does have descriptive language for the background landscape and settings that I was satisfied with. I’d recommend this book to kids from broken homes going through coping with divorce, or an adult looking to pass a couple of hours.
******
Impact Zone
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on Smashwords
Latest Review: Yesterday by Samyann
