Joel Padgett

This one should have been a slam dunk for me and ultimately I will read the next one if it happens but hopefully the author will get a more knowledgeable editor.

The protagonist’s thing is linguistics and having her diagram sentences frequently is cool and expected but having those sentences only in the diagrams breaks the focus of the reader (me).

Make sure the author is up to the mettle of her budding genius creation. If someone says “…he could care less”, there is no way someone has pendantic as Maggie wouldn’t flag that as incorrect even if only in her thoughts.

But worse for me is the avoidance of action. We only hear about most of that as exposition from mostly Maggie after the fact.

this meeting could have been an email.

I enjoyed the plot, the story and the storytelling. The author, though, kept attempting unique turns of phrases or descriptions but they were not grounded enough to evoke or describe their targets.

wanted to enjoy this more. A little political intrigue;a little queerness and wrapped into a bow of Vietnamese heritage. But the rhythm of the writing was off for me. So much that I only made it halfway through before giving up.