Review of Survival Girl

[Lucy Vera]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Survival Girl" by Carolyn Jernigan.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Survival Girl by Carolyn Jernigan is a work of fiction centered on the life of a particular average girl child, Tanya. Survival Girl begins with Tanya's rejection both at home and in Junior High School. In school, she frequently clashes with a notorious gang. At home, the cruelty her father metes on her makes her doubt if he is her biological father. Will her doubt be confirmed? Or will it be refuted?

Survival Girl, just as the name suggests, tells the story of a girl who struggles in first, her academics, then in her career, and relationships, including family relationships and romantic relationships. Nevertheless, she dreams of having a fantastic wedding. Shelly, her friend, has some concerns about the man she is about to marry. Will her fiance be the answered prayer to all her life struggles? Or will the fears of her best friend, Shelley, over her fiance be confirmed?

I tried so hard to find a positive aspect of this book, Survival Girl, but I found none. However, there are several negative aspects of this book. First, there was little or no suspense in the book. I found nothing in the book to keep readers glued to their seats for hours. I found this book boring; I felt the author could have narrated the story to add some thrill to it. Due to this lack of thrill, a reader might likely ditch the book halfway. Also, the order of events was poorly arranged. There was nothing to distinguish one event from another in the same chapter. In fact, at times, a new scene might be introduced in the paragraph containing an old event. Thus, a reader has to go through the trouble of trying to understand when an event has ended and when another has begun. Also, the profanities and swear words contained in this book are too much. If you are a reader who doesn't like reading books with many vulgar words, then this is not the best fit for you. An average reader will find the incessant use of profane words intolerable. I could not see a page that did not contain a profane or vulgar word.

Furthermore, I found that Jernigan did a poor job with character development. For instance, I felt the author left a lot of questions unanswered when it came to certain characters. In addition to that, although this book is targeted at young persons, especially the girl child. I found no moral lessons which the targeted audience could learn from the book. Instead, this book is filled with negative lessons like dealing drugs, excessive smoking, and sexual escapades. More or less, this book did not seem to have a definite direction. Ultimately, the author introduced characters without any prior mentioning of them in the story. I found this weird because I had to go back to see if the character had been previously introduced in each instance.

I found a whole lot of errors in this book. This ranges from grammatical structure, spelling errors, errors involving punctuation marks, and down to the content arrangement. It seems that the draft of Survival Girl was just published without subjecting it to the scrutiny of a professional editor.

Therefore, I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I couldn't give it a higher rating because aside from the incessant use of vulgar, abusive, and profane words, there are no morals that can be learned from the book.

I would recommend Survival Girl to young readers who are interested in fictional books. Although its targeted audience are young readers, in my opinion, this audience stands to gain nothing or learn anything from reading this book.

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Survival Girl
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[Sarah Muthama]

That's a candid review! I feel some cold chills as I read the explicit views of this reviewer.

[Apple 7]

The theme of the book seems very motivational, but the book seems to have more work to do before it can fully be satisfactory. Very nice review

[Amenrodion]

Wow. Such a great theme but apparently an underwhelming book in itself

[José Cortez]

I appreciate you honesty. The author could take some of the negative aspects you mentioned here and work on them.

[Julius Nwohiri]

This is a charade in public writing. I thank the reviewer for putting it the way it is. Blunt!

[Asiaa Szn]

I must commend your writing. Your review has piqued my interest in the book. Nice work

[Hussein Abdallah 1]

Moral is everything when you are looking for the book to read. .so if the moral is not well considered, no need to read the book that not considered morals...honestly I like the way the review shows on how a girl survive after rejections. .thanks for the wonderful review

[Eva brook]

It is a pity that a book with such an actual idea wasn't developed and worked on enough. Very helpful review, great job.

[Claire Zondo]

Thank you for the honest review! I have many read books similar to this one, character development is very important in a book, it peeks the readers interest in following the characters journey, wihtout it the story would be bland and generic.

[Ronnie Comendador 1]

I like the way the review shows,character development is really important about the storyline of the book..very interesting..great review..

[Uchechukwu Fortune Njoku]

I appreciate your honest review. There is really nothing to look up to on this book. The title is quite captivating, but as it is said "all that glitters is not gold."