Review of Shatters and Love

[Jada Hawkins-Hill]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Shatters and Love" by Lyambila Cletus Edson.]

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2 out of 5 stars

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Shatters and Love by Lyambila Cletus Edson is a story about two young adults, Julienne and Micker, navigating their way around their newfound relationship and those who are trying to force them apart. While it was an interesting concept, I believe it deserves two stars out of five from me.

The reason I give this book two stars out of five is that it does not seem like it went through an editing process to correct all of the grammatical errors. There were huge paragraphs of run-on sentences, confusing timelines, misspellings (and not just because they are in a different country), and inconsistencies in character’s perspectives which changed randomly. It took me a while to finish reading this book because it was so hard to keep up with all of the errors. It felt like I was constantly distracted by the errors, so it was hard to connect with the characters and their plights. I was able to find interest in it again about halfway through the book when I stopped caring about tracking every single error since there were too many to count and just tried to enjoy the book as much as I could. Despite all of the errors, the concept of the book was different than what I am used to since this was based in another country, so it forced me to realize that there are things that are normalized or common in other countries that are not too common in the United States. Some things that I felt were similar to my upbringing was calling a potential crush/romantic partner a “friend” to parents and family even though everyone knew that was not the case. I have been in those shoes many times! However, it did confuse me how often Micker and Julienne would refer to one another as a friend or deepening their friendship when I thought it was clear that they were dating. It left me wondering if that is another cultural difference I am unaware of in their country. If the book had been edited more, I think I would have been able to give it a higher rating. I will also state that this book does have some mature language and content that may not be suited for younger audiences such as cursing, alcohol and drug use, and violence.

Overall, the book was not the worst, but it could have been much better had there been further proofreading and editing to catch all of the errors, which is why it received two stars out of five from me.

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Shatters and Love
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