The Left Hand of God

So here is another review. 

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman (2 out of 5 stars, did not finish)*

I loved the beginning of this book. As I read more, my enthusiasm lessened. Near the end, I was flipping through pages instead of actually reading it.

There are many issues that marred my enjoyment. Most of the good guys are just too decent and fatherly towards Cale, the hero, if we bear in mind their political positions and/or past. The women of the book are stereotypical and a bit clueless, or shrewd and heartless. Cale moves from tortured child to fully fledged messiah, and he's too young to pull this off in a plausible manner. The writer also uses words and phrases that have no place in a medieval-ish kind of setting. As one unlikely event piled upon another, I lost that beautiful sense only fiction can give, the "yes, this could have happened!" state of mind. I could see that the writer loved his hero and wanted him to have everything he had been deprived of, and then some. This unfortunately is a recipe for disaster. You end up giving too much, too easy, too soon, and real life never works that way. This mentality works in the Young Adult genre, but I didn't get the impression that this is such a book.

On a positive note, I loved the writer's sense of humour, as well as the playfulness of his prose. There are incidents and phrases that had me laughing out loud. I wish he had devoted more time in making his world more realistic and his heroes more complex. Not a bad book in any case; entertaining, funny, fast-paced, gripping, hopeful for the human race. If not for the flaws in plot and character building I would have given it twice as many stars.

*My star rating and what it means: 

 

Zero stars: Why me?!?  I do come across books that aren't really books, but brain damage in disguise. For reasons you can all understand, I won't be publishing reviews on them. I tend to become enraged and say things I later on regret.

One star: Meh... I didn't like it and won't be keeping it. It might be the book, or it might be me. I'll try to clarify in my review.

Two stars: Average/ Okay. Either the kind of light/ undemanding book you read and don't remember in a month, or suffering from flaws that prevented it from realising its potential.

Three stars: Better than average. Good moments, memorable characters and/ or plot, maybe good sense of humour... Not to die for, but not feeling like you wasted your time and money either.

Four stars: Wow, that was good! Definitely keeping it and checking to see what else I can buy from the same writer.

Five stars: Oh. My. Goodness. The kind of book you buy as a gift to all your friends, praise to random strangers on the bus, and re-read until the pages fall out and the corners are no longer corners, but round.