Tomas

A shot in the dark that hits the spot

3zekiel synopsis on Goodreads caught my attention, and without much hesitation I've decided to pick it up, which proved to have been a terrific decision. The book was thoroughly enjoyable experience.

The story is told from the perspective of a 17-year old teenager, who's been living in DRC for the past four years, and focuses on the event of the First Contact. Usually teenager-based PoV's tend to be rather dry, superficial, depicting the character as hot-headed and, for the lack of a better word - dull-witted. Peter Cawdron's attempt though encompasses a much wider array of traits, making empathizing with the character seamless and its' depiction believable. Other characters were also well defined and developed, given the constraints of the size of the novel.

The plot revolves around social, political, and, well, extraterrestrial conundrums all-together, able to keep a sense of realism. The author provides a plethora of relatable analogues for scientific concepts and jargon, thus keeping you in for the ride, without having you looking up anything separately.

One tid bit I was not entirely content with, was the fact that the ending was rather straightforward and clear-cut, thus not leaving much space for ambiguity and imagination, which, to me, has a monumental significance, especially in this genre.