[Review] Fractions of Existence - J. Lenni Dorner

 

Titel: Fractions of Existence

Series: Existence #1

Author: J. Lenni Dorner

Publisher: -

Format: Kindle, english

Synopsis: GoodReads

Review: 3*, GoodReads, Amazon

A digital copy of this book was provided for me by 'Chapter by Chapter' as part of a blogtour. This did not influence my rating or review.

Once they were humanity's exalted protectors— now they are being hunted.

Xavier will weigh all human life against Gwendolyn's ignorant happiness.
The good news is that her choice can blow his away.

Omnipotent beings find each other while playing an online game. Xavier has been searching for Gwendolyn, his true mate and the missing member of the Existence. Only if reunited can the group regain the rest of their memories and access all of their powers. Hidden in plain sight, disguised as humans, they help who they can, as best they can, when they can.

The Eyes in the Shadows, a religious sect, has been trying to free humans from the “prison” of life on Earth for millenniums. The Existence has always been able to thwart them… until now. They've discovered a way to end the world that no one will see coming.

Gwendolyn has her future all laid out. There is a plan. She knows what her parents want for her and how to get it. Then Xavier, a friend from a virtual game, makes her question everything. He's full of secrets, one being an understanding of her fear of the wind.

She tries to suppress her intense attraction to the mysterious and frustrating Xavier. She's engaged, after all, and the thoughts she's having aren't proper. Gwendolyn is swept into a whirlwind of secrets, danger, and a forbidden attraction. She'll drive across the country in her beat-up old car, not knowing if he is genuinely interested or just being polite. (He refuses to kiss her!) Gwendolyn's journey is full of self-doubt, sacrifice, and dark visions that invade her sleep. Will she uncover the truth about herself?

-->GoodReads 

 

Let me be completely honest with you. Neither the cover nor the synopsis drew me to the book. The Cover seems washed out doesn’t give any hint about the book. The synopsis sounded vaguely interesting but nothing more.

Then why did I read the book? Well you see, I’m a tour host for ‘Chapter by Chaper BookTours’ and I repeatedly got mails asking people to sign up for the tour and as I’m on kind of a roll right now when it comes to reading and reviewing I decided to sign up.

Before I really get into the review let me tell you that despite all the negative things you’ll read here I did rate the book 3 stars, simply because I couldn’t put it down and can’t wait for the sequel.

Right from the beginning I noticed that I did not like the writing style. I can’t really put it into words but it just didn’t flow right. A lot of the time I stopped after reading a sentence to figure out why the sentence seemed wired to me and snapped me out of the story.

The author also used some “big” words, words that I didn’t know and that didn’t really fit the story. Yes English isn’t my first language, but I’ve never had any trouble with any of the hundreds of books I’ve read, be it fiction, self-help or something educational.

There were also a few grammatical errors and instances where words were either missing or doubled up, though this is probably because it’s an advanced reader’s copy.

The story itself was really interesting and I haven’t read anything similar before. Yet there was a wired mix between information dumps in thought / monologues and missing information that simply confused me. There were a lot of parts that I felt like did nothing at all for the story, like the first “sex-scene” from the chatroom / game. I don’t mind lemons but this scene was not written well at all and does not have any impact on the story. In general the whole thing with the game and Xaviers cousin wasn’t well done in my opinion. Both were introduced as ways to connect Xavier to Wend and then simply dropped. I spent the whole time wondering whether they continued with the game or stopped once they exchanged phone numbers?

Another thing that really annoyed me, which I will not get into too much here, otherwise this will turn into a huge rant, is the focus on wealth and beauty and the view on women. Throughout the whole book women are reduced to their looks and the way many are described made me want to throw my kindle away.

As for the characters, I didn’t understand Wend at all. While I have no trouble imagining all kinds of fantasy worlds and characters I really can’t understand how people who live in the modern, western world can live like that. (This is me assuming that the author didn’t just invent everything and this is really how “Mormon Culture” works. If not I’m sorry) The way her family and Tred treat her is just outrageous and that she seems to believe it’s justified makes everything worse.

I don’t have much to say about Xavier, as I had trouble connecting with him and really getting to know him. Yes I’m aware he’s drop-dead gorgeous, incredibly rich and Wend is his soulmate and he needs her to complete the Existence. I still feel like I don’t know him.

I like Heath and Jez, though.

As stated before I did like the plot and can’t wait to continue with the story, especially because the ending frustrated me quite a bit ;) 

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