The Big Egg by Jared Booth

[Kiki7138]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Big Egg" by Jared Booth.]

The Big Egg written by Jared Booth is a quirky story about, you guessed it, a big egg. Beyond that, there's not a whole lot I can tell you. Is it a mystery? Suspense? Comedy? That's a good question. Unfortunately this book doesn't answer that question, along with many others.

The story takes place in a small town named Bobbleton, which I am assuming is somewhere in the Great Britain vicinity based on terms such as "allotment", "pounds", and "bollocks" scattered throughout the story, but you know what happens when you assume. The main character, Freddy, is an elderly gentleman who after his allotment was vandalized a month ago, has gone to extreme measures to increase his security. But despite six deadbolts, a cement wall with glass and homemade spikes, and security cameras, a seven foot tall egg-like object appears within the walls of Freddy's allotment.

This of course is very upsetting to Freddy who then decides to enlist the help of the local police. The force is made up of four officers and two PCSO's, or police community support officers, who happen to be on their first day on the job. They have an excuse for their stupidity, but the experienced police officers are made to be bumbling idiots as well. While each character goes about approaching the "crime" in their own way, the only thing they succeed in is annoying the reader with poor character development and repetitive dialogue.

I felt no real connection to any of the characters in the story and really was not interested in what happened to them. There was much lacking in developing the relationships between Freddy and his daughter, his grandson, and Chief Inspector Crabhead. The only character that I was slightly amused by was the reporter Sproggley; the author did do a good job of portraying the press with him. It seemed like there were a lot of other characters that were haphazardly thrown into the story but had little to do with the actual plot.

The ending was rather predictable and left me feeling, well, not much of anything other than relief that it was in fact the end. I really wouldn't recommend this story to anyone, and am giving it only two out of four stars. It has been a week since I finished reading the story and I have yet to figure out what the point of it was, but perhaps someone else can find the meaning that I apparently missed.

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