carolesrandomlife

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life.

I liked this book but I didn't love it as I had hoped that I would. The focus of this book was really on the characters with the plot taking a lesser role. I thought the book was really slow at times and was fairly easy to set aside. However, the writing had a nice flow which I really enjoyed. Overall, I found this book to be a good read.

This book was very character driven. I think one of my main problems with the story is that I never connected with any of the characters. Sure, I liked East well enough but more in a acquaintance kind of way. Even after reading the whole book and spending all of those pages with East, I am still not sure that I really understand him. I felt even less of a connection to the rest of the group that go on the trip, Ty, Walter, and Micheal.

Before reading the story, I had expected a lot of action. A book about gang members going on a road trip to murder a witness sounds action packed - at least in my mind. There wasn't nearly as much action as I had expected with much of the story being spent in the van on the trip and trying to decide what they should do next. The second half of the book got a little more interesting for me when the group gets split up. At that point, the story becomes completely East's story with his life looking very different. It is apparent that East is thinking about taking a different path in his life.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a coming of age story that is a little different. I do think that most readers are going to enjoy this one a bit more than I did. This is the first book by Bill Beverly that I have had a chance to read. I enjoyed his writing style and would definitely read more of his work in the future.

I received an advance reader edition of this book from Crown Publishing via First to Read for the purpose of providing an honest review.

Initial Thoughts
This was okay for me. The real focus of the book was the characters with the plot taking a back seat. It dragged at times but it was a decent read overall.