Dear Reader,
In my last letter to you I told you about this idea, rather project, of mine – ‘Charity Box’ books.
Here is my first installment
You’ve Been Warned by James Patterson
If I am to be asked to give a one word review of this book, I’d say “what” or may be… no, really “what”.
I used to like Patterson. No, I used to love him. I devoured his Alex Cross books and Women Murder Club. I could not wait for the TV adaptations to come out. I waited for new books in the series and bought them as soon as they came out. I could not get enough of James Patterson. I even read his teenage series (the first book) and persevered with The Jester.
Yeah, persevered being an operative word. I stopped ‘pattersoning’ after The Jester. I went right off Patterson. I stopped buying his books and even following his publication schedule. I stopped until a few days ago.
My ‘Charity Box’ pile is James Patterson’s books only. I have not read them yet. So, I am reading them and only then giving them away.
The first book in the pile happened to be You’ve Been Warned by James Patterson and Howard Rougham.
You’ve Been Warned is a stand alone novel. There will be no prequel or sequel, I hope. This book was very easy to read. I remembered one of the reasons I loved James Patterson so much. His books are very easy to read. They are broken down in very short chapters and parts. They can be read in a night or two. No matter how horrible, gory, or heavy the plot and story lines are, you can still read it on the train, on the beach, in the waiting room.
However, the story itself much to be desired of. You keep on reading, hoping for something to clear, for some clue to clarify and explain what is going on. However, it does not happen. You are not going to know anything until the very end of the story. Even then, you are not going to know or understand much.
You’ve Been Warned is a story of a lost and confused girl who finds herself alone in New York and is entangled in an affair with a married man. This affair is not the last of her problems. She is seeing things, hearing things. On top of all this, this poor girl is having horrific nightmares with sound and smell and even touch that seeps through her waking life. But… once again, readers do not even know where is waking and where is nightmarish realm.
Dead people walking, cockroaches in wardrobes, diamond bracelets and microwave porridge. There is a bit of everything in this story. However, the question remains, ‘what’? What was the book about? Who was the bad guy? Was the girl crazy? Where it all started and ended?
Anyhow, the book is read and is waiting for its time in the ‘Charity Box’.
Svetlana Tishchenko 