I’d like to thank Flame Tree Press for sending me an ARC of this book to read and review. This book has a release date of August 17, 2021
Years after witnessing the abduction of a boy and doing nothing about it, social worker John Colby suddenly begins to have bad dreams. Then while he is awake he begins to see a boy from his dreams. A boy named August.
This is a hard book to review because it is my first “Uncorrected” Arc and to be perfectly frank I’m not sure if that means that the story is still being worked on or if that means they haven’t finished doing all the proofreading. Both of which can use some tending too in my opinion. While I am not docking points for some mistakes that I’m sure will be fixed like calling a character (Sarah) by the wrong name (Susan) in chapter 25 there were other issues about the book that bothered me.
Characters seemed to do things with no reasoning behind them. At one point in the story, a man sneaks into a car, retrieves something from it then closes the car door as quietly as he can. And immediately stands up and makes noise. In the context it was written it doesn’t make much sense.
In another chapter, it is clearly stated that Sarah’s mom moved to be closer to Sarah. On the very next page, Sarah is at her mom’s house in her old room filled with old posters If this is the house her mom moved into to be closer to Sarah how would this be Sarah’s old room?
The book seems to be made up of the same events happening over and over. John sees a face or lanky boy. John has a dream. There is an argument. There are spiders. Repeat. I was confused for much of the book as to who/what the antagonist was supposed to be and after reading half of the book I think I stopped caring. There were repeatedly references made to pop culture movies. This may not be the case at all but there was just something about them that made me begin to have the feeling that I was supposed to like the book because it was referencing so many classic movies. We like the same things so we should like each other.
I did not like the main character. It seemed like everyone would just give excuses for everything he did. Even those he wronged. I found one character jumping from the opinion of “You are having bad dreams” to “These dreams are real” very unbelievable and too convenient.
I found the secondary male lead a little too perfect for a teenager. And what I thought was a subplot developing for the female lead went nowhere and had no impact or reason to be in the story at all.
There is no detailed explanation of what is going on as far as the supernatural. You get a very vague summary that doesn’t explain any details about how or what.
For me, the climax of the book was a huge letdown. I reread it several times and actually saying out loud “That’s it?”. It seems hurried and falls flat for me.
This is not a book I would recommend. I simply did not find it creepy, suspenseful, or very entertaining.
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August’s Eyes (Fiction Without Frontiers)Use the following link to add this book to your goodreads list.
Maitland Reviews 