Ferdinand - Munro Leaf itibaren Pena Yayınları içinde LIT biçim

Ceyda Karli karliceydaf930 — ** spoiler alert ** Currently on part 8 out of 11 on the audiobook. So the book starts out interestingly enough: Hero Man and his dog are on a small Caribbean island, illegally, looking for survivors after a terrible earthquake. They meet Lady Vet, dog appears to be More Than Meets the Eye Dog. He's maybe sentient, or immortal, or can heal the terminally ill. Precious Magical Savior Dogs...I feel like I've wandered into a Dean Koontz book on accident. Then....nothing happens. I'm about two-thirds of the way into the book, and not a damn thing has happened that I could care about. Some people Lady Vet knows but we get maybe two sentences about may or may not have died at the hands of Dastardly Evil Guy who wants to get his hands on the Magical Dogs. Hero Man has killed a few of Dastardly Evil Guy's henchmen, though any fun gruesomeness is largely glossed over, and again, who cares about Lackey No. 1 and 2 dieing? Lady Vet has a psycho stalker douchebag ex-husband who showed some potential so far, even hooks up with Dastardly Evil Guy, but again, he hasn't done jack so far into the game. Dastardly Evil Guy may as well just be twirling a mustache or rubbing his hands and going "Mwahahaha!" for as much as he's done thus far. Meanwhile, you'd think since the dogs in this are so special, they'd play a more interesting part in it all, but nah, they're mentioned now and then but for the most part are glossed over completely because Lady Vet and Hero Man (who has been tossing out bucketfuls of obnoxious testosterone with every step he takes) are too busy running the plot into the ground by hammering the reader with nonstop Unresolved Sexual Tension and bickerings and NOBODY FREAKING CARES. Now, despite reading too many of his books, I am not really a huge Dean Koontz fan. However, I do like how he makes the vast majority of pooches in his stories to be their own characters. No, they're not anthropomorphic beings who speak human languages (at least, not in any of the books I've read), but they almost always have a personality, and you come to think of them as just as important as any of the human characters. Johansen...doesn't really have the dog-as-character aspect down as well. They're (or at least Ned) described as having near-human emotions and understanding at times, but I'm really not feeling it. They may as well just be some valuable jewels the baddies want to get their hands on. Instead of building up the dogs as characters, she chose to focus waaay too much on how...I honestly can't remember their names, that's how much of an impression they make on me, oh, right, Devon and Jude need to be all belligerent sexual tension at each other, but they're GONNA FALL IN WUV, and they need to FINALLY HAVE SEX and yeah, any potential exciting action really isn't as important. Oh yeah! The dialog is almost embarrassing at times. The characters say "dammit" waaay too often, especially since the book isn't afraid of using even more colorful language. Really. Both Jude and Devon use it as if they've just discovered it and it is the BESTEST WORD EVER, and they need to use it to accentuate whenever They're Feeling Mad (which is often), I don't know, maybe because the author can't think of a way to show her Characters Are Mad! any other way. It's a bad crutch, and she uses it far too often. Again, it just feels embarrassing. It's all just...so....boring. There's a potential betrayal coming Jude's way, though I don't really believe it'll happen, and any thrilling suspense! is probably going to all be crammed into the very last part of the book, but I really doubt that's going to save it from me giving it the dreaded One Star. We'll see, though I'm really not looking forward to finishing it. Still, I've come this far. EDIT: Alright, it's done. That was....boring. 1) Marrok is an immature, testosterone-overloaded jerkass. Honestly, why are all these people trying to help him? I spent most of the book either wanting him to shut up or for someone to punch him in the face. Responsible because he takes care of magical dogs? Yeah, so? That doesn't make him not an immature, testosterone-overloaded jerkass. Why is Devon becoming more and more attracted to him and being more and more on his side? 2) I'd had my hopes set on psycho ex-husband. Things could've become gritty and disturbing. All he ends up doing is squeezing a boob and getting killed. No, seriously. Not that I was hoping for something overly traumatic due to him, but still, couldn't he have been used to increase the suspense like, at all? For that matter, if all he's going to end up doing is nothing, you'd think that Devon would record his numerous threatening phone calls to use against him, since he always finds out her new number and he always threatens her over the phone. He did it so often she basically became used to them. 3) Bridget (sp?) was one of the few characters I found interesting and worth liking. Janet was another. Bridget getting shot was also one of the dumbest things in the book. Marrok, manly man extraordinaire, has Danner, i.e. Dastardly Evil Guy, at his mercy. Danner's gun's been knocked away, Marrok has his own gun on Danner, he can kill him easily. Instead, Hero Man gives Dastardly Evil Guy one minute to find his gun while he yaps his head off. Dastardly Evil Guy gets his gun, shoots at Devon, Bridget takes the bullet instead. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Seriously? I mean, Marrok doesn't seem to have any problems killing other people in this story. He's been at odds with Danner for forever and has been looking to put an end to his Evil Doings for a while now, and...."I'll give you a minute to find your gun"? Bwuh? Why? "If you're gonna shoot, shoot. don't talk." What? Suddenly wanted to make Hero Man seem more noble by not having him kill Dastardly Evil Guy in cold blood? Who cares! Marrok is already an asshole; everyone knows that. There is no point whatsoever for this sudden compunction other than for it to do something about Bridget's vision of Devon getting shot. I don't really like Devon, but I don't hate her either, but she still could've gotten shot instead and survived like Bridget did anyway. That whole scene was just eye-rolling in general, though. 4) Again, the dialog in this book is just embarrassing, dammit. Who talks like that, dammit? Who punctuates every other sentence with "dammit", dammit? Who uses the word "scumbag" to describe truly vile villains who kill others in cold blood outside of a rated-G children's movie, dammit? GodDAMN. And did I mention that Marrok just needs to shut up, dammit? 5) Last minute family trees and miraculous revelations! Are you joking me. Look. I know that this is about magical dogs and all, but still. I guess Johansen just couldn't resist one last push to make the book goofier still. You know, if this had been the story for some cheesy, cheap, made-for-tv movie, it might not have been so bad. Probably fairly entertaining. Some action, hokey acting, cute dogs; good to kill two hours in your day. As a book? Particularly one from a novelist who is supposedly well known as a suspense writer? One where the audiobook clocks in at about nine-to-ten hours in length? It's a waste of time.