Official Review: Winging It by Daniel Keven

[Lovely_Loreley]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Winging It" by Daniel Keven.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Daniel Keven’s Winging It is the story of Zachary, a young guardian angel with big dreams. He is given a six day substitution assignment for another guardian angel, through which he might prove his worth and achieve a permanent assignment himself. The mortal is Sheldon Stuckey, an accident-prone, nerdy boy in the town of Avalon on Catalina Island. Zack is unprepared for the monumental task of guarding Sheldon, and things quickly fall apart. In his carelessness, Zack loses the special guardian angel ring that allows him the powers of invisibility and flight, making him effectively mortal for the rest of his assignment. Throw in the accidental discovery of an old treasure map, and Zack finds himself attempting to protect Sheldon from both the local bullies and the pirates who want to claim the promised treasure for themselves.

This story had a lot of potential. The plot was fast-paced but not too complicated and had some refreshing twists that kept the plot moving. However, there were a few too many coincidental occurrences for my taste, including the fact that the item with the hidden treasure map sat in a pawn shop for years until Sheldon happened to buy it just before the pirates came looking for it, and the manner in which Zack’s lost ring finally turned up later in the story. At times it felt as though the author had given up trying to figure out realistic ways to move the plot along and resorted to convenient happenstances instead.

Aside from the plot of the story, there was unfortunately very little for me to like. The writing overall felt rather juvenile; it was focused almost entirely on plot and actions, whereas it would have been nice to have a little more detail about the characters or their surroundings. From the occasional details that were given, I got the feeling that the author could clearly picture each aspect of every scene, which made me wish that I, too, could imagine everything with such clarity.

My other big issue with the book was the characters: the defining traits for each character were exaggerated to a comedic extent. Zack, our supposed hero, had maybe one redeeming quality; for most of the book he was just as awful to Sheldon as any of the bullies, constantly complaining about having to guard someone who was so beneath him when he (Zack) was clearly worthy of a much better assignment. As a reader I could not sympathize at all with Zack’s situation, as he was simultaneously so egotistical and idiotic that I was pleased every time his stupidity got him into a bad situation. Sheldon was described as a total clown, which I found to be both demeaning and highly unrealistic. He managed to fall or otherwise injure himself almost every time he took a step, and his only friend on the entire island was his dog, Barney.

Because the book seems best suited for young adults or younger readers, the “happy accident” type of occurrences and the writing style are more understandable, so readers in this audience might find the book more enjoyable than I did. However, it would probably not be as enjoyable for any reader who could identify with Sheldon, as there are constant little barbed comments about him and very few attempts to redeem his character. That being said, I can only give this book 2 out of 4 stars. Others might enjoy reading it, but I did not. At times it was sickening to see everything from Zack’s point of view, as he was such a negative character overall, so it was hard to enjoy what could have been a very good plot. If the writing were more sophisticated and the characters more realistic, with mixtures of positive and negative qualities, this book could appeal to a much larger audience.

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Winging It
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[Rachaelamb1]

Nice review, you did a good job of highlighting problem areas of the book. I can see how seeing everything from the POV of a character you dislike would make the whole story unenjoyable. Too bad the main character wasn't more likeable.

[Lovely_Loreley]

Thanks Rachaelamb1! This definitely isn't the only book I've ever read where I disliked the main character/speaker, but it was particularly hard to get through this one. I wish Zack had had a natural course of development toward redeeming qualities but instead it never really seemed like he realized how much of a jerk he had been at the beginning. Especially since the book is written in first-person, I would worry about it essentially putting readers into the mindset of a bully...

[kimmyschemy06]

That was a very honest review. The plot sounds very promising. Based on your description of the characters, it seems that I would not like him myself Nice job on the review!