Review of Shucked Up
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Haime Alshaef
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Review of Shucked Up
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Shucked Up" by Leelon Edwards.]
Amidst the billowing waves and clamor of fishing boats, rumors of a new law shatter the tranquility of Apalachicola, a small, coastal city located in the Florida Panhandle. Raw oysters carry a virus called Vibrio vulnificus. Without treatment, this virus gets shipped all over the country, endangering the lives of many people. Post-harvest processing can easily get rid of the risk, but it’s also quite expensive. For the fishermen and oyster community of Apalachicola, this new regulation threatens to shuck away not just their livelihood but the very essence of their way of life. As tensions rose and news of the deaths of three FDA agents spread, it was obvious that something dangerous was brewing in that city. Officer Philips accompanied his old friend Mack on a trip to Apalachicola to see how the new mandate would be received by the people it would affect. But when tensions boiled over and Mack was poisoned, Philips realized he might be in more danger than he initially believed. Will he find the culprit before it’s too late? Or will more people drop dead? Read Shucked Up by Leelon Edwards to find out!
I enjoyed this story quite a bit! Edwards obviously knows what he’s talking about, and his expertise shines through in his novel. The book follows two different journeys: Drew and Mack and a local fisherman named Alex. The stories don’t overlap much until the very end, and in cases like these, it can be hard to remember which events happened and where, but Edwards does an excellent job of differentiating between them. He gave each character their own conflicts to battle through and their own risks and dangers, and this ensured that I’d be captivated by both stories until the end. The pacing was a little slow in the beginning for me, but it picked up well near the middle and was much easier to get through.
However, while the story itself was great, I did have problems with the formatting and editing. I found too many distracting spelling and punctuation errors, but a couple of sweeps with a professional editor would fix that. My biggest issue was with the formatting. In a normal story, each page is filled up until the chapter is over. If I were to reach a part of the book where the last sentence ended in the middle of the page, in my head, I would assume that the chapter is ending, and the next page will be the first of the new chapter. This means that I read the last page with a sense of finality. The chapter’s ending, and so are the events I just read about. However, this wasn’t the case in this book. Pages would end randomly. I could go through two pages back-to-back that were half-empty and nowhere near the end of the chapter. This happened so often, and it ruined the flow of the story enough that my reading experience was significantly diminished. These errors disrupted my immersion into the story and made it challenging to connect with the characters, ultimately detracting from my overall enjoyment of the book.
For these reasons, I would rate this book 2 out of 5 stars. It had a great plot, and any mystery reader would enjoy trying to figure out who the culprit was; however, there were too many distracting elements. If they were to be fixed, I’d gladly give this book 5 stars.
As I mentioned, mystery lovers would enjoy this book, but I think it’s also important that the reader has some experience with the seafood industry or fishing. This is because the author used many terms and phrases that related to the topic. Without that knowledge, it would be difficult to properly understand and visualize what is happening in the story.
******
Shucked Up
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Amidst the billowing waves and clamor of fishing boats, rumors of a new law shatter the tranquility of Apalachicola, a small, coastal city located in the Florida Panhandle. Raw oysters carry a virus called Vibrio vulnificus. Without treatment, this virus gets shipped all over the country, endangering the lives of many people. Post-harvest processing can easily get rid of the risk, but it’s also quite expensive. For the fishermen and oyster community of Apalachicola, this new regulation threatens to shuck away not just their livelihood but the very essence of their way of life. As tensions rose and news of the deaths of three FDA agents spread, it was obvious that something dangerous was brewing in that city. Officer Philips accompanied his old friend Mack on a trip to Apalachicola to see how the new mandate would be received by the people it would affect. But when tensions boiled over and Mack was poisoned, Philips realized he might be in more danger than he initially believed. Will he find the culprit before it’s too late? Or will more people drop dead? Read Shucked Up by Leelon Edwards to find out!
I enjoyed this story quite a bit! Edwards obviously knows what he’s talking about, and his expertise shines through in his novel. The book follows two different journeys: Drew and Mack and a local fisherman named Alex. The stories don’t overlap much until the very end, and in cases like these, it can be hard to remember which events happened and where, but Edwards does an excellent job of differentiating between them. He gave each character their own conflicts to battle through and their own risks and dangers, and this ensured that I’d be captivated by both stories until the end. The pacing was a little slow in the beginning for me, but it picked up well near the middle and was much easier to get through.
However, while the story itself was great, I did have problems with the formatting and editing. I found too many distracting spelling and punctuation errors, but a couple of sweeps with a professional editor would fix that. My biggest issue was with the formatting. In a normal story, each page is filled up until the chapter is over. If I were to reach a part of the book where the last sentence ended in the middle of the page, in my head, I would assume that the chapter is ending, and the next page will be the first of the new chapter. This means that I read the last page with a sense of finality. The chapter’s ending, and so are the events I just read about. However, this wasn’t the case in this book. Pages would end randomly. I could go through two pages back-to-back that were half-empty and nowhere near the end of the chapter. This happened so often, and it ruined the flow of the story enough that my reading experience was significantly diminished. These errors disrupted my immersion into the story and made it challenging to connect with the characters, ultimately detracting from my overall enjoyment of the book.
For these reasons, I would rate this book 2 out of 5 stars. It had a great plot, and any mystery reader would enjoy trying to figure out who the culprit was; however, there were too many distracting elements. If they were to be fixed, I’d gladly give this book 5 stars.
As I mentioned, mystery lovers would enjoy this book, but I think it’s also important that the reader has some experience with the seafood industry or fishing. This is because the author used many terms and phrases that related to the topic. Without that knowledge, it would be difficult to properly understand and visualize what is happening in the story.
******
Shucked Up
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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Sunitha A R
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You brought up some good points about the pacing and character development. That really helps me decide if this book is for me. Great job!
~Spoorthy 
