Book Review: When

It's really rare that I buy a book without having read it first, but I made an exception for When, since I was on vacation.  I wish I'd saved the ten bucks.

When has an interesting premise, albeit one that is very similar to Rachel Ward's Numbers.  Maddie Flynn knows the deathdate of every person she sees.  She has a reasonably lucrative business running with her momager, reading deathdates for a price.  But, when she correctly predicts the date that a young boy is murdered, she lands herself in a world of trouble.

The book begins strongly, I felt.  It's nothing new under the sun, for sure, but it was pleasant in the sense that it's classic YA pulp.  It reminded me of the good old days of my teenage years, reading battered paperback "Jenny Carrol" (AKA Meg Cabot) books. However, my enjoyment of When started to deteriorate sharply as the pages kept turning.

My main complaint was the pacing.  The plot starts grinding quickly enough, but then it stalls.  Maddie, our protagonist, falls apart and reacts passively to all her troubles, making for a boring, frustrating reading experience.  I mean, I fall apart and react passively enough in my own life.  I don't want to deal with that nonsense in a pulpy, escapist fiction!  In fact, I made a note on my kindle at the exact moment that Maddie takes initiative.  It was at the 72% mark.

By the time that Maddie takes the bull by the horns, she's was beyond redemption.  Compounding the situation were other issues.  Laurie, our author, attempted to draw out her mystery by keeping Maddie oblivious to certain clues and preventing her from making simple inferences and connections.  As a result, Maddie came across as dumb.  Dumb as a bag of hammers.

So, what could buoy a book with a turgid plot and a poorly drawn protagonist? Supporting characters? Blah.  They were unimpressive.  Romance?  Dead On Arrival.  Beautiful prose?  Not hardly.

I strongly recommend that you pass on this one.