Official Review: The Road to Round Mountain by C.G. Roberts
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- Latest Review: "The Road to Round Mountain" by C.G. Roberts
Official Review: The Road to Round Mountain by C.G. Roberts
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Road to Round Mountain" by C.G. Roberts.]
3 out of 4 stars
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For anyone looking for a science-fiction story with great bones from a young adult perspective, The Road to Round Mountain: The Betrayal by C. G. Roberts fits the bill perfectly. The book begins with the last scene and works its way back to that point in unexpected ways that surprise and delight the reader. 17 year old Billy’s story really kicks off when lightning strikes and his family ends up dead while he is hospitalized. William Shake Speer, who prefers the nickname Billy, is a stereotypical nerd who discovers that he has superpowers as a result of his close encounter with lightning, and now he just wants to find a way to live in this new world with his crazy abilities and maybe get a date with the lovely nurse Jenny. But between his confusing and ever changing new abilities, a crazy agency that has no trouble bribing and killing anyone who stands in the way of getting Billy for experimentation, and an increasingly hostile town, it seems like Billy may not have any friends left alive, let alone a chance at a normal life, but life is full of curve balls, especially for a boy struck by lightning.
Roberts does a great job during any individual scene, Billy gets hit with disaster after disaster and even when things seem to work out in one sense, something else goes wrong making the situation seem even more dire. It makes it even easier to root for and become attached to Billy as the story progresses. I had a hard time getting into the story at first because the lack of action made some of his writing flaws more obvious, but by the end, I couldn’t put it down because I had to know what happened to Billy.
The rough part for me is the writing flaws. Roberts has a lot of raw talent, but the beginning would have been more engaging if descriptions had formed the base with the events coming after. By the time he would describe a character, I had made up my own descriptions, so I had to readjust. Typos don’t generally bother me, but if they do bother a reader, then there would have been enough to be distracting. Furthermore, there isn’t much in the way of transitions in which the characters work through their emotions in spite of the fact that Billy and the other characters are dealing with a lot of traumatic and emotionally stirring scenes that need to be worked through, but they just move on to the next thing. That combined with Billy’s nearly unlimited power and strength detract from the suspense because the match-up between Billy and his opponents seem more like it was Billy’s to lose rather than a neck and neck match-up with an uncertain outcome. The lack of emotional development and Billy’s raw power make the story and some of the characters seem a little too perfect to be real.
The feeling that the characters just aren’t buyable gets emphasized by a lot of little things. Like a 17 year old who doesn’t know how to use Google maps or apps in general but loves video games, which is a virtually impossible contradiction, particularly in a public school setting. Also, all of the characters under the age of 25 end up smoking by the end of the book while all the adults either don’t smoke or are “quitting.” In an age where being a smoker has become a dirty secret for younger generations, this comes off flat and makes the author seem out of touch with the generation he is featuring as his central focus. I feel like a better choice would have been to pick a generation that more closely matched his own experiences so that the characters would read more realistically.
I would love to see this author work through some creative writing courses and then publish something else because the bones are there, and they are great. The plot and scene structure could be best seller material and are something that is hard to teach, but the transitions and writing style could use some work to realize the potential that Roberts is displaying in this book. However, if the reader is willing to suspend disbelief and appreciate the story for its solid action sequences, then this is a great book to read.
I am giving this book a 3 out of 4 stars because I would read it this book even though it is out of my genre comfort zone, and I did enjoy it overall in spite of the book’s lack of fine-tuning. Plus, I think some other people who only are willing to look past some of the writing flaws to appreciate Robert’s raw talent and scene design will really enjoy this, particularly if they like the slightly clichéd set-up of a normal kid becoming a super-hero. However, for people who love beautiful writing as much as they love a well-constructed story, I would recommend reading something Roberts writes a couple years from now.
******
The Road to Round Mountain
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on Barnes and Noble
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3 out of 4 stars
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For anyone looking for a science-fiction story with great bones from a young adult perspective, The Road to Round Mountain: The Betrayal by C. G. Roberts fits the bill perfectly. The book begins with the last scene and works its way back to that point in unexpected ways that surprise and delight the reader. 17 year old Billy’s story really kicks off when lightning strikes and his family ends up dead while he is hospitalized. William Shake Speer, who prefers the nickname Billy, is a stereotypical nerd who discovers that he has superpowers as a result of his close encounter with lightning, and now he just wants to find a way to live in this new world with his crazy abilities and maybe get a date with the lovely nurse Jenny. But between his confusing and ever changing new abilities, a crazy agency that has no trouble bribing and killing anyone who stands in the way of getting Billy for experimentation, and an increasingly hostile town, it seems like Billy may not have any friends left alive, let alone a chance at a normal life, but life is full of curve balls, especially for a boy struck by lightning.
Roberts does a great job during any individual scene, Billy gets hit with disaster after disaster and even when things seem to work out in one sense, something else goes wrong making the situation seem even more dire. It makes it even easier to root for and become attached to Billy as the story progresses. I had a hard time getting into the story at first because the lack of action made some of his writing flaws more obvious, but by the end, I couldn’t put it down because I had to know what happened to Billy.
The rough part for me is the writing flaws. Roberts has a lot of raw talent, but the beginning would have been more engaging if descriptions had formed the base with the events coming after. By the time he would describe a character, I had made up my own descriptions, so I had to readjust. Typos don’t generally bother me, but if they do bother a reader, then there would have been enough to be distracting. Furthermore, there isn’t much in the way of transitions in which the characters work through their emotions in spite of the fact that Billy and the other characters are dealing with a lot of traumatic and emotionally stirring scenes that need to be worked through, but they just move on to the next thing. That combined with Billy’s nearly unlimited power and strength detract from the suspense because the match-up between Billy and his opponents seem more like it was Billy’s to lose rather than a neck and neck match-up with an uncertain outcome. The lack of emotional development and Billy’s raw power make the story and some of the characters seem a little too perfect to be real.
The feeling that the characters just aren’t buyable gets emphasized by a lot of little things. Like a 17 year old who doesn’t know how to use Google maps or apps in general but loves video games, which is a virtually impossible contradiction, particularly in a public school setting. Also, all of the characters under the age of 25 end up smoking by the end of the book while all the adults either don’t smoke or are “quitting.” In an age where being a smoker has become a dirty secret for younger generations, this comes off flat and makes the author seem out of touch with the generation he is featuring as his central focus. I feel like a better choice would have been to pick a generation that more closely matched his own experiences so that the characters would read more realistically.
I would love to see this author work through some creative writing courses and then publish something else because the bones are there, and they are great. The plot and scene structure could be best seller material and are something that is hard to teach, but the transitions and writing style could use some work to realize the potential that Roberts is displaying in this book. However, if the reader is willing to suspend disbelief and appreciate the story for its solid action sequences, then this is a great book to read.
I am giving this book a 3 out of 4 stars because I would read it this book even though it is out of my genre comfort zone, and I did enjoy it overall in spite of the book’s lack of fine-tuning. Plus, I think some other people who only are willing to look past some of the writing flaws to appreciate Robert’s raw talent and scene design will really enjoy this, particularly if they like the slightly clichéd set-up of a normal kid becoming a super-hero. However, for people who love beautiful writing as much as they love a well-constructed story, I would recommend reading something Roberts writes a couple years from now.
******
The Road to Round Mountain
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on Barnes and Noble
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Latest Review: "The Road to Round Mountain" by C.G. Roberts
