Official Review: Ray Ryan by Aiden Riley

[jhollan2]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Ray Ryan" by Aiden Riley.]

---

Share This Review

---

Ray Ryan, a novel by Aiden Riley, is a story about a young boy growing up in Nottingham, England. It follows him through school, dealing with bullies, temptations, and an abusive father. As a young adult, he learns to deal with loss: of his best friend, of his mother, of his old dog, and the affections of his childhood sweetheart. As he grows, Ray must learn to look at the things that really matter in order to overcome tragedy and reunite his shattered family.

Ray Ryan reads like an unedited first draft, with little consideration of word choice or punctuation. It is littered with strange phrases and awkward run-on sentences or fragments. I am fond of semicolons and feel that they are a useful and often undervalued punctuation mark, but using eleven on one page is excessive. The overabundance of semicolons, colons, ellipses, and commas made it difficult to read and were very detrimental to the flow of the narrative.

There is no sense of purpose to the plot, just a meandering exploration of random points of Ray Ryan’s life. The author heaps misfortune on his character, surrounding him with abuse, violence, drugs, and death, but even at the end there didn’t seem to be a cohesive point to it all. There is a strange conversational tone to some parts, as if the character is speaking to the reader, which comes across as strange and jolts readers out of the narrative. The author also seems entirely uncomfortable describing physical romantic encounters and would have been better off to leave them out entirely, instead of halfway describing them and ending with phrases like “well, you know what happens next, right?”

Another thing Riley leaves unclear is the setting. While it is clear the story takes place somewhere in England, it takes about a hundred pages before he clarifies that the characters live in Nottingham. Despite Nottingham being a historic town with some distinctive architecture, there is no attempt to describe any of it to the readers. When they go on holiday, they visit a smaller town with golden sand beaches, but it isn’t until after they have returned home that the narrator tells us they had been in Newquay. The lack of certainty over where the events are taking place was strange and fit in with the vague tone of the rest of the story.

It is clear that while the subject matter is fairly dark, the author has no experience with or understanding of topics like drugs, addictions, or cancer. The early part of the story reads like a bizarre morality tale of the dangers of marijuana, the basis of which seems to be that doing drugs will lead to shadowy drug dealers beating you up and forcing you to work for them. When the father is revealed to be an alcoholic, the prevailing sentiment is that if he loves his family, he will stop drinking. Riley completely glosses over the complexities that make up addiction and simplifies it into an easy choice. When a character is diagnosed with cancer, she dies from it the next day. While this is not outside the realm of possibility, it is far from the norm and felt like a plot convention that the author couldn’t be bothered to research further.

At times, the melodrama of the plot reads almost as comedic, although that is clearly not the intention. The boys discover a stash of marijuana in the woods, and are stalked by shadowy figures in hoodies and dark cars, who force one of them to work for them for years to pay off the debt. Ray’s father owes money to a cliché Mafioso, complete with a dark car, henchmen, and a beguiling teenage daughter, who forces them to work off their debt in unscrupulous ways. The clichés run heavy throughout the novel, with no attempt to pretend they are something new.

Overall, I am giving Ray Ryan two out of four stars. I was not impressed with the writing and the plot didn’t hold my interest, but perhaps some other reader will find it worthwhile. Someone who is fond of clichés, melodrama, and plot-hole filled happy endings will find the book right up their alley.

***
Buy "Ray Ryan" on Amazon
Buy "Ray Ryan" on Barnes and Noble

[amybo82]

I appreciate your honest review! It sounds like this book is going to need some work! It's one I'll not be adding to my reading list!

[jhollan2]

Thanks Amybo! I am always hesitant to post reviews that are critical, but I think that it is just as important to know what you are getting yourself into before starting a book. I'm glad I could help.

[H0LD0Nthere]

Thanks for this fun review; your line about semicolons made me laugh out loud!

It does indeed sound like the writer just needs more life experience and more practice writing and researching. I wrote a lot of trash when I was younger. I mean gobs of it. I hope he keeps writing and gets better at it, and if he happens to read your review, I hope it doesn't crush him but rather encourages him to work more on his craft.

[jhollan2]

I always try to be constructive with my criticism in reviews, because I know that putting yourself out here is difficult. I have certainly written my share of rubbish as well, that I cringe over now. I hope this didn't come across as too harsh. I tried to explain why I felt the way I did, and what could be done to make it better, instead of just outright saying how much I struggled to get through this one. I sometimes find it hard to find the balance between being complementary and encouraging to young authors and making sure the readers know exactly what they are getting into. Like I said, this wasn't necessarily a bad book, it just wasn't for me and it needed a lot of polishing up.

[H0LD0Nthere]

Yes, I hear you. I think you the hit the right note. Readers do need to know what they are getting into. Authors do need to hear where to improve, but they don't need us crowing over their flaws, do they? For me, knowing that the author is quite likely to read my review and reply on this site helps keep me courteous.

Again, thanks for the review.

[LivreAmour217]

This must have been a very difficult review to write and I commend you for your courage and honesty. None of us wish to be the bearer of bad news to an aspiring author, but sugar-coating the truth is not helpful. Hopefully this will be a learning experience for the author.