Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Book Review: Immortal Writers by Jill Bowers


Young up-and-coming author Liz McKinnen has no idea that her life is about to change forever when she comes home from her first book tour. When she's kidnapped and told by her captors that she has to kill her fantasy book's antagonist, she thinks that she's fallen into the hands of crazy, dangerous fans... until her antagonist sends a real, fire-breathing dragon after her. Liz is quickly initiated into the Immortal Writers, a group of authors from throughout time whose words have given them eternal life, and whose prose is so powerful that it's brought stories over from the Imagination Field into the Reality Field. As Liz meets authors such as William Shakespeare, JRR Tolkien, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jane Austen, she has to learn how to control magic, fight dragons, and face her own troubled past before her power-hungry villain takes over the world. Will she survive the ultimate battle against the dragon lord whom she created?



 


Immortal Writers isn't a book that I would normally go for. Actually, if I'm being completely honest ... I didn't mean to pick this one off of NetGalley. I received an email about this book and when I clicked the link to check the book out, it approved me on NG. So. I figured since I got it, I might as well give it a shot!

I had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up. I didn't give it a second glance once it was put onto my Kindle after the whole NG Email Mis-Click of 2016. I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I'll try to keep any spoilers out of here ... nothing I say won't be found in the first chapter or so. This author chick gets kidnapped and told that the characters she has created within the pages of her book have come alive. Her characters came alive because she's an Immortal Writer. Immortal Writers are authors like Shakespeare, Poe, Austen and hundreds more. Basically, they are the authors that have made a massive impact on the literary world. Yeah, the premise of this book is nothing like I've ever read before and to say that it grabbed me almost immediately would be an understatement. I was totally intrigued by this whole idea. 

Unfortunately, I don't think that the main character (Liz) was stout enough to handle the kind of weight that the Immortal Writers author put on her. Liz was not a compelling character. I didn't really connect with her and the fact that she was this awe-inspiring author was not believable in the least. When you bring characters into a book and they are bigger than life people/fictional-characters then anything standing next to them is going to wither in their massive shadow. That is exactly what I think happened to Liz. Liz as a character didn't compare to Shakespeare. Even Shakespeare's part in the book seemed more fleshed out than Liz's. That's unfortunate. There are some books where the story-line will carry a reader to the end of the book and then there are books where the characters are what propel the book. This one should have been pulled off by the characters. But it fell short and for the first time, I was actually really irritated with a book. 

Most of the time, when I read a book and it doesn't go well, I just shrug it off. It happens and it's not that big of a deal and I just move on to the next one. But this time, I wanted it to succeed so very badly that I was pissed when it was over. It had so much potential and instead of becoming an amazing book, I was left unfulfilled and questioning my initial positive feelings. I wish that Liz had been a better character for me. I wish that she had been as amazing as her author counterparts. 

* I received this book in exchange for an honest review *



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