I was given an e-copy of The Coyote by Steven Georgiou for review.
I've been stewing for several days about how to frame my review. I am somewhat fussy abut what I accept to review, I only accept books I think I will enjoy. I wanted to enjoy this one, it's the mindset I went in with.
So, here's the problem: The Coyote needs a lot of work. The coming of age story of Raki (The Coyote) is a good concept. But the story seems to be trying to talk to several different age groups at the same time. Not an impossible feat, but it didn't work well here. Beginning the book I though "this is a book I would have to read to my grandchildren" (the book was represented to me to be a children's book) because some of the language would be beyond their understanding. At times the vocabulary is more appropriate to a teen audience at best. Okay, not the end of the world.
Next, the story was highly repetitive, repeating backstory on characters way too much, even for young readers, got to be a bit tedious.
The Coyote offers itself as "motivational". I didn't really see this until the final 10% or so of the story, and I was looking for it.
Of the hundreds of books I have reviewed I have only not finished one, at 40% complete I decided to add this one to that short list. It was just getting too hard to read. I actually put it down for a couple of days and started to read something else. Well, I happened to get a Goodreads notification from a friend whose opinion I greatly respect who "liked" that I was reading The Coyote. So I decided to give it another shot.
Sad to say for me it was a real grind. The climax was very disappointing. The story continuously hinted at the big confrontation to come and it, for me, fell flat. The resolution was just kind of an afterthought. The epilogue did not bring resolution to many of the side stories. It was the most disappointing for me.
What I came away with was the belief that what this book needs is an editor, and proofreaders. An editor could smooth out the rough and clunky spots and temper the redundancy ("ascended up the path"). Proofreaders would catch the mistakes (several) like random words inserted in sentences where they don't belong.
With good editing this could be a fun read. I like that the author wrote a full length book, long enough to really develop the story line. I also like that he didn't necessarily talk down to his audience, although he was guilty of over explaining at times.
I am more than willing (hoping) to find that I was sent an early draft of the story by mistake, It has happened in the past more than once. Easy to happen where computer files are involved.
I truly hope such is the case here, because as it was presented to me, I can't work up much enthusiasm for this book.
Mike
