Review of The Human of All
Posted: 26 Aug 2023, 08:04
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Human of All" by Ryan Parrett.]
Imagine being the victim of a majorly unfortunate incident at work and waking up with your life turned upside down, but somehow, still the same. John Campbell, a marine engineering officer, goes through a life-altering event when he is hit by a mooring line while at work in Miami. However, he wakes up perfectly unfazed at the bottom of the ocean.
John slowly understands the gravity of his superpowers when he realizes that he doesn’t feel pain, doesn’t need to sleep, and no longer needs to breathe! The best part is that he gains serious speed and can fly, too! As he gets stronger, he wishes to hide it in order to have a normal life. How will John cope with this? Why and how is it all happening? How will his loved ones process this new and unusual information about him? The pages of The Human of All by Ryan Parrett hold the answers.
Ryan Parrett did an excellent job of characterization. I loved how strong the women in this book were. Arla and Callum (John’s colleagues and best friends) initially gave me Hermione and Ron vibes. I absolutely loved Arla, even though I thought she behaved unreasonably in certain scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about John and Annie’s romance, right from their first date. Jay, the German Shepherd, was always the apple of my eye.
I appreciate how Parrett went into detail with a character’s mannerisms. For example, a dialogue was always accompanied by a gesture or body language. A few incidents also reminded me of some films. A particular plane-related scene got me thinking of the Bollywood movie Krrish 3. Similarly, a disturbing scene from the last chapter gave me Quentin Tarantino vibes as it reminded me of a specific scene from Django Unchained.
Some of Parrett’s scene descriptions were amazing. It was delightful to read about John and Annie’s first date in detail. The jitters, the clumsiness, the laughter—how perfect! However, unfortunately, the scenes that genuinely needed a detailed account lost their pages to those that didn’t need them at all. This made the book slow-paced, affecting the will to continue reading.
Another thing I noticed was that the book was equally divided into five chapters and didn’t have many paragraph breaks. I believe breaking the text down into smaller paragraphs and chapters would’ve helped the reading process much more. The book needs another round of editing as well, as I found several errors throughout.
Lastly, it disappointed me that such a bright concept only had one goosebumps moment throughout the book, causing the narrative to fall flat otherwise. The explanation of the events was unsatisfactory, too. I liked John’s assumed explanation for the powers more than the actual explanation. However, the full-circle moment at the end did give me some satisfaction.
Due to the reasons mentioned above, I believe The Human of All deserves 2 out of 5 stars. This book requires a patient reader. Anyone above the age of 16 who is curious to know how a man would use superhuman powers (if bestowed upon him) can pick this book up. This concept had a lot of potential but needed better execution.
******
The Human of All
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
Imagine being the victim of a majorly unfortunate incident at work and waking up with your life turned upside down, but somehow, still the same. John Campbell, a marine engineering officer, goes through a life-altering event when he is hit by a mooring line while at work in Miami. However, he wakes up perfectly unfazed at the bottom of the ocean.
John slowly understands the gravity of his superpowers when he realizes that he doesn’t feel pain, doesn’t need to sleep, and no longer needs to breathe! The best part is that he gains serious speed and can fly, too! As he gets stronger, he wishes to hide it in order to have a normal life. How will John cope with this? Why and how is it all happening? How will his loved ones process this new and unusual information about him? The pages of The Human of All by Ryan Parrett hold the answers.
Ryan Parrett did an excellent job of characterization. I loved how strong the women in this book were. Arla and Callum (John’s colleagues and best friends) initially gave me Hermione and Ron vibes. I absolutely loved Arla, even though I thought she behaved unreasonably in certain scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about John and Annie’s romance, right from their first date. Jay, the German Shepherd, was always the apple of my eye.
I appreciate how Parrett went into detail with a character’s mannerisms. For example, a dialogue was always accompanied by a gesture or body language. A few incidents also reminded me of some films. A particular plane-related scene got me thinking of the Bollywood movie Krrish 3. Similarly, a disturbing scene from the last chapter gave me Quentin Tarantino vibes as it reminded me of a specific scene from Django Unchained.
Some of Parrett’s scene descriptions were amazing. It was delightful to read about John and Annie’s first date in detail. The jitters, the clumsiness, the laughter—how perfect! However, unfortunately, the scenes that genuinely needed a detailed account lost their pages to those that didn’t need them at all. This made the book slow-paced, affecting the will to continue reading.
Another thing I noticed was that the book was equally divided into five chapters and didn’t have many paragraph breaks. I believe breaking the text down into smaller paragraphs and chapters would’ve helped the reading process much more. The book needs another round of editing as well, as I found several errors throughout.
Lastly, it disappointed me that such a bright concept only had one goosebumps moment throughout the book, causing the narrative to fall flat otherwise. The explanation of the events was unsatisfactory, too. I liked John’s assumed explanation for the powers more than the actual explanation. However, the full-circle moment at the end did give me some satisfaction.
Due to the reasons mentioned above, I believe The Human of All deserves 2 out of 5 stars. This book requires a patient reader. Anyone above the age of 16 who is curious to know how a man would use superhuman powers (if bestowed upon him) can pick this book up. This concept had a lot of potential but needed better execution.
******
The Human of All
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes