Review of Family Business
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Erik Onstott
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Review of Family Business
[Following is a volunteer review of "Family Business" by James Jack Fauser.]
J.J. Fauser’s Family Business is more or less the book equivalent of Metallica’s 2003 album St. Anger—a good concept that was very poorly executed.
Looking at the concept of this book as detailed by the official synopsis, it looked like it could be great. You have—among other things—high-speed tactical operators in the shadows, lots of action, and rogue actors at some of the highest levels of government; what’s not to love?
As things turned out, unfortunately, the answer is ”plenty.”
It’s difficult for this reader to say anything negative about books in general. Most of the time anything bad can be overlooked—but not here. This book just isn’t that well put together. It has a good plot, as noted before—well worthy of a techno-thriller or espionage thriller—but between the typos, bad grammar, and stilted prose (including dialogue in the latter), it comes off as more than a little bit of a beginner effort.
And that’s before we consider things such as, to cite one example, our intrepid protagonist using a gun as a club as he’s being attacked by a dog. (Honestly, can you imagine the likes of Scot Harvath, James Reece, or even Jack Reacher ever doing such a thing? How bush-league.) Reading the book, one could get the idea that the author was trying to do more of a stream-of-consciousness style of writing than anything else, but it feels like they were just ad-libbing it as they went along. The whole thing reads like a middle schooler’s take on the genre, and the author using their own name as the name of said protagonist certainly doesn’t help that perception.
On one hand, this book could have greatly benefited from an editor and proofreader, preferably someone who has read these types of books on a regular basis and has a good eye for dialogue and general narrative flow—but on the other hand, by the time the book was made, shall we say, presentable, it would’ve had so many edits to have merited a co-author credit for the proofreader.
Final Rating: 1 out of 5.
******
Family Business
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
J.J. Fauser’s Family Business is more or less the book equivalent of Metallica’s 2003 album St. Anger—a good concept that was very poorly executed.
Looking at the concept of this book as detailed by the official synopsis, it looked like it could be great. You have—among other things—high-speed tactical operators in the shadows, lots of action, and rogue actors at some of the highest levels of government; what’s not to love?
As things turned out, unfortunately, the answer is ”plenty.”
It’s difficult for this reader to say anything negative about books in general. Most of the time anything bad can be overlooked—but not here. This book just isn’t that well put together. It has a good plot, as noted before—well worthy of a techno-thriller or espionage thriller—but between the typos, bad grammar, and stilted prose (including dialogue in the latter), it comes off as more than a little bit of a beginner effort.
And that’s before we consider things such as, to cite one example, our intrepid protagonist using a gun as a club as he’s being attacked by a dog. (Honestly, can you imagine the likes of Scot Harvath, James Reece, or even Jack Reacher ever doing such a thing? How bush-league.) Reading the book, one could get the idea that the author was trying to do more of a stream-of-consciousness style of writing than anything else, but it feels like they were just ad-libbing it as they went along. The whole thing reads like a middle schooler’s take on the genre, and the author using their own name as the name of said protagonist certainly doesn’t help that perception.
On one hand, this book could have greatly benefited from an editor and proofreader, preferably someone who has read these types of books on a regular basis and has a good eye for dialogue and general narrative flow—but on the other hand, by the time the book was made, shall we say, presentable, it would’ve had so many edits to have merited a co-author credit for the proofreader.
Final Rating: 1 out of 5.
******
Family Business
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Deceptive Calm by Patricia Skipper
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Ruth Shirk
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While i was not quite as negative, I agree that this book needs editing, I got nothing out of the store titles. Like you, I thought this book was written by a beginner.
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Etimbuk Eshiet
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You made some strong points here. I agree—a solid concept doesn’t always save poor execution. Do you think with the right editor, this story could be salvaged into a great thriller?
