Official Review: Kai and the Collector by Isaac Westwell
Posted: 28 Apr 2016, 17:44
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Kai and the Collector" by Isaac Westwell.]
2 out of 4 stars
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Kai and the Collector is a novelette about a young woman named Kai who becomes the victim of an alien entity called The Collector. Honestly, I didn’t understand the point of the story. I was confused at the end, and a lot of scenes in the story seem to have had no bearing on the overall plot. For example, a lot of time was spent at the beginning introducing the reader to Maro on the train. Maro, however, has no purpose in the story. The reader never sees her again.
The story suffered from poor editing, vagueness, and point of view problems. “Kai and the Collector” had many punctuation and capitalization errors. Sometimes the syntax made it difficult for me to understand what the author was trying to say.
I had a lot of unanswered questions about Kai and her past. One point in particular that bothered me was how she could have an uncle if she was parentless. Did he raise her? If not, who did? There seems to be some inconsistency in Kai’s backstory. She is referred to as parentless, but then the author says her uncle stalked her mother. So, she must have had a mother for at least some period of time.
I was aggravated by the point of view problems. It seemed that the author couldn’t decide between third person limited and third person omniscient. If it had been written entirely in an omniscient point of view, I wouldn’t have minded the head-hopping. As it was, though, I didn’t know whose point of view to expect.
If it had been truly third person limited point of view, the reader would not have known things like “he couldn’t afford to unnerve Kai any further” because Kai couldn’t read Uncle Rem’s thoughts. She also wouldn’t have known that the “bored man” on the train stole a glance at her when she was looking out the window. On the other hand, if it had been truly omniscient, the reader would have known what was making Uncle Rem nervous. That’s why I said that it seemed the author couldn’t make up his mind about which type of perspective he wanted to use.
On a positive note, I appreciated how skilled the author was with setting the scenes and worldbuilding. I could visualize everything clearly, and I had no unanswered questions about the locations or societal structure.
Overall, I believe “Kai and the Collector” has potential but needs further refinement to cut unnecessary scenes, expand the ending so it makes more sense, and definitely further editing to remove errors. As it stands, I would not recommend this story to any of my blog readers. I give Kai and the Collector two out of four stars.
******
Kai and the Collector
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Kai and the Collector is a novelette about a young woman named Kai who becomes the victim of an alien entity called The Collector. Honestly, I didn’t understand the point of the story. I was confused at the end, and a lot of scenes in the story seem to have had no bearing on the overall plot. For example, a lot of time was spent at the beginning introducing the reader to Maro on the train. Maro, however, has no purpose in the story. The reader never sees her again.
The story suffered from poor editing, vagueness, and point of view problems. “Kai and the Collector” had many punctuation and capitalization errors. Sometimes the syntax made it difficult for me to understand what the author was trying to say.
I had a lot of unanswered questions about Kai and her past. One point in particular that bothered me was how she could have an uncle if she was parentless. Did he raise her? If not, who did? There seems to be some inconsistency in Kai’s backstory. She is referred to as parentless, but then the author says her uncle stalked her mother. So, she must have had a mother for at least some period of time.
I was aggravated by the point of view problems. It seemed that the author couldn’t decide between third person limited and third person omniscient. If it had been written entirely in an omniscient point of view, I wouldn’t have minded the head-hopping. As it was, though, I didn’t know whose point of view to expect.
If it had been truly third person limited point of view, the reader would not have known things like “he couldn’t afford to unnerve Kai any further” because Kai couldn’t read Uncle Rem’s thoughts. She also wouldn’t have known that the “bored man” on the train stole a glance at her when she was looking out the window. On the other hand, if it had been truly omniscient, the reader would have known what was making Uncle Rem nervous. That’s why I said that it seemed the author couldn’t make up his mind about which type of perspective he wanted to use.
On a positive note, I appreciated how skilled the author was with setting the scenes and worldbuilding. I could visualize everything clearly, and I had no unanswered questions about the locations or societal structure.
Overall, I believe “Kai and the Collector” has potential but needs further refinement to cut unnecessary scenes, expand the ending so it makes more sense, and definitely further editing to remove errors. As it stands, I would not recommend this story to any of my blog readers. I give Kai and the Collector two out of four stars.
******
Kai and the Collector
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like bookreviewer2016's review? Post a comment saying so!