Review of The Sum of All the Pieces

[Deborah Gaffiero]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Sum of All the Pieces" by Paul Bradford.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The book recounts the life of the author, Paul Bradford, from his perspective, from early childhood up to the age of seventy years. He describes how he was born in a poor family which worked hard to earn a living and describes vividly the effects of alcoholism within the family and related sufferings. The author managed, over the course of time, to advance and make progress in his life, became successful and able to live comfortably surrounded by his own happy family, wife and children. This life story comes directly from the heart of a person who has reflected on his whole life and repented on the bad decisions and actions he had made in his life. It seeks to make us aware that a life of a person is all about choices that he makes which in turn have an effect over his whole existence.

The positive aspect of this book is the life story being recounted. It is about willingness to survive and hard work. The underlying message is that life presents you with challenges and it is all about choices you make which affect you and those around you. It attempts to illustrate how one single wrong action can create an enormous upheaval in a person’s life.

The negative aspect of this book is that the author goes back and forth in his life. The book does not proceed from one life episode to another and is sometimes repetitive. As well, the narrative needs improvement. There is use of inappropriate language and lists and complaints which should have been built in the narrative. I had to completely ignore these to continue reading it till the end. Throughout the book unnecessary detailed descriptions are used.

My rating of the book, The Sum of all the Pieces, surviving life’s challenges and bad decisions, written by Paul Bradford is two out of four stars. The subject matter is interesting and compelling, but it is felt that improvement is required in terms of writing style, it includes various raw documents, uses slang and the wording contained in the text can be significantly improved. As well, it has different detailed descriptions of sexuality and sexual activity.

Due to the various explicit descriptions relating to sexuality and sexual activity and the vocabulary used in the book, it is recommended that the book is strictly for mature audiences.

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The Sum of All the Pieces
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