Book Reviews: Edition 26 features Good Night Forest Fairies, Just Once More, and A Very Murphy Christmas: The Murphy Brothers Saga 3.5.
Good Night Forest Fairies
Good Night Forest Fairies is written by Crystal Willette.
This was a rather simple but sweet story about fairies going to sleep for the night, and all the magical things that happen from the night to the dawn. This book gets 5/5 stars from me.
Just Once More
Just Once More is written by Shaw Hart. It might be obvious from the cover that this is not a children’s story. However, the length is just over 50 pages, which is the maximum for posts like this, so I’ve decided to include it.
So, first, I want to be up front to say that I couldn’t get past Chapter Two in this one as nothing had happened yet as of that point. As of page 11 of 56 it was still all the characters retelling what had happened the night before from an extreme narrative distance that does not fit the story.
Although, honestly, this wasn’t a story. It’s one big info. The writer is telling us everything at the outset of the story. There’s no mystery, no burning desire to figure out what happens because we know what will happen. Ultimately, the characters will get together.
There is no present tense to the story so far, and there’s no grounding anywhere. The writer immediately jumps into telling about what happened before instead of dropping hints and letting the readers deduce what happened. Writers should only give the reader just enough information for them to follow what is happening. Hart apparently never learned this lesson.
This story gets 1.5/5 stars.
A Very Murphy Christmas: The Murphy Brothers Saga 3.5
A Very Murphy Christmas: The Murphy Brothers Saga 3.5 is written by Tamika Brown and illustrated by Courtney Dean.
Again, this is not a children’s book, but at 49 pages, it’s not really long enough to get its own post.
It focuses on a family leading a gang at Christmastime. I can tell you that I honestly didn’t like it, but that wasn’t because it was poorly written. As soon as I realized we were talking about characters in the mob, I had a knot in my stomach. And, I feel like this book celebrates everything I believe to be wrong.
I only read the first two chapters, and that was enough to decide that I didn’t want to read on, but just because it wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean that it’s a bad book.
I noticed one or two tense errors, but otherwise, everything seemed to be well written. Objectively, this gets 4/5 stars.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Based on Book Reviews Edition 26, I recommend Good Night Forest Fairies.
If you would like me to review your book, email me at andiecampbell@andiecampbellblog.com for pricing information. Children’s books and shorter books start at $5 normally, but are half off until 2023.
One thought on “Book Reviews: Edition 26”