Gone Cold

TL;DR

I'm sitting at my desk, my figure casting a long shadow over the table from the barely opened blind. I need to write a review for Gone Cold, I feel a chill down my spine and my heart skips a beat at the thought. I decide to get up and open the blind more, exposing myself to the dawn sun. My heart skips a beat at the golden hour rays that make me squint as my eyes try to adjust at the abrupt contrast in lighting. I open the window and the cold breeze sends a chill down my spine. As I turn back I see my entire body casting a long shadow over the room now. Typing steadily on my keyboard, each word a grim reminder of the story and it's characters, without warning I get chills over my spine as I try to push those thoughts away. Reading the epilogue and seeing how the author has more than twenty other books is enough to send a chill down my spine and my heart skips a beat imagining myself reading more of these stories. While reviewing what I typed I see my long shadow that was cast on the wall noding in unison with me, agreeing with my thoughts. We looked at eachother, staring silently as the birds outside are in constant battle with eachother chirping away their feelings. I see the shadow going away slowly fading with each second more and more as if saying he's had enough and cannot be with me anymore. All I can do is watch and let him go, I cannot stop him for I have no more control over him as he has over me. The moment he's completely gone a chill ran down my spine, as if I just lost a brother. The long shadow that was cast on my room is no longer there, was this a response from reading the book or am I loosing my sanity? A chill ran down my spine as I look back at the window. Ah today's going to be cloudy.

My Scoring System

I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:

X - Main Story: Pretty boring, there were constant "we need to do x, it might helps us see the bigger picture". Where I was "wait, where are you getting that from?" or "Okay, that's a little far fetched there.". It's hard to describe but while reading this book I knew I was reading a crime story that was written by someone.

X - Side Stories (if it applies): The trauma of our main protagonist I didn't believe it, she just lived in a cult for her first nine years and she keeps talking about it like she suffered her whole life and had to "deprogram" from that cult's teachings. I don't think teaching a child of nine years of age to think differently is such a behemoth of a task honestly.

X - Characters: Boring as well I did not believe Becca's trauma as she's constantly having nightmare and everything she sees reminds her of her previous life. The constant "it's over now, that life is gone" while still being trapped in the past and uneble to let go or move on is frustrating.

✓ - Setting/Ambiance: Nothing stands out, cool open forests and scenery though.

X - Ending: Nothing unexpected happened, no "Ohhh he's the one?". No, the criminal is just some random who never had any connection or seen the main protagonist. So when it got resolved I was left unsatisfied.

Extensive Review

My TL;DR was not a joke, I'm just getting into reading and I mainly read science fiction but in my 30 books read I've never seen this happening. This book has twenty-seven chapters, by chapter three I was already telling myself "Okay, what is going on with the "Casting a long shadow over..." and "Becca's heart skipped a beat" and "felt a chill down her spine"?". It's so annoying that I could not get to enjoy the story which is already pretty boring but I cannot tell you how many times I rolled my eyes reading one of those three sentences over and over and over and over. There's a part where it says "chill ran down her spine" and literally two paragraphs down it says it again.

I don't have crazy standards but I swear I've never had this problem with any other book I've read which makes me assume that this was a poorly written book. The story was not interesting, we all know that your protagonist is just as good as your villain, and when your villain is just some random being evil for the sake of it, it makes your protagonist boring as well. The villain had no connectiong with our protagonist never even seen her so when they finally meet it's nothing special.

The banter between the main protagonists was fine, when the author didn't get a chance to describe casting shadows or chills running down spines or skipping heartbeats I was enjoying reading it. They felt like two people in a conversation not just two imaginary characters talking to eachtother.

I don't want to be mean or hurt the author but seeing how she's written so many books I will assume she's gotten better in her later books so this review shouldn't matter that much. This is honestly how I felt. I don't want to read a book I don't enjoy and I'm sure the author doesn't want that either.

To those "reviews" that I saw at the end of the book getting quoted did not read the same book as I. They're talking about how this book has amazing twists which it has none, saying "I never guessed who the murdered was" yeah that's becasue he's some random without any connection to anyone so of course you can't guess him.