the pink alpaca reviews

[2020] - XX

L'affaire Bob by Rarefan

Premise/Summary

Shortly after the death of his best friend Bob, Paul René is surprised by a visit from a mysterious woman he has never met before. This woman tells him who he really is and reveals his true identity. She claims to know everything about Paul and offers to help him find the assassin who killed his friend. But is it true...does she know everything?

To discover it, Paul embarks on a series of adventures and meets friends and enemies who help him in his quest to find Bob's killer. Who is the savage assassin who murdered a poor innocent without using a weapon?

Are there links to the dark and terrible secrets Paul's family has been hiding for generations?

Review Proper
A. Blurb

I like how the blurb shows us the disturbed world of the protagonist and promises the adventure that we will be seeing in the book. It is focused on the central conflict, on the main character, and I think it does good on this part. The hook is there, too.

B. Setting

This is where it gets problematic. The story does little to no scene-painting that it didn't quite immerse me into the setting of the story. I am not familiar with the world of Paul and the interesting agency he finds himself in. It would have been an interesting world, for sure, but the story is not quite there in terms of description, worldbuilding, and executing a setting.

C. Plot

I have not been able to read far because of the reasons to be listed in the latter subsections. I have not gotten past the training arc mostly because the plot that led the MC there lacked causality and strength. The MC (we'll talk deeper into this in the latter subsections) is just yanked here and there with no agency and without much choice. The beginning scenes just breezed through the entire exposition of the world without much dexterity nor flow.

D. Pacing

The pacing of this story is so fast that it tends to skip important moments that could have been sites for worldbuilding execution. The chapters are short, choppy, and I think this is one of the reasons that lent to the story having a rushed feel to the readers.

In an ideal world, this story would have been perfect for my fruit-fly attention span.

One way to remedy this is to slow down and tell the story from the character's eyes. Tell the readers what the character sees, hears, smells. Tell us what they are feeling, what their dreams are, and what they want most in their life and not just rushing through scenes hoping the reader will get it.

E. Characters

The foremost reason why I was not able to read this book fully is because of the characters and their dynamics. For the scenes I read, the MC thinks, talks, and acts like a teenager even though he is 25. Everyone around him also thinks, talks, and acts like they are 15 instead of grown adults. This disjunct didn't sit well with me.

The first chapters highlighted character interactions that would define friendship and not-so-friendships but the attention is so focused on that that the training/time-traveling worldbuilding is kind of pushed to the side. The banters are somewhat excessive and oftentimes unnecessary.

I have not read that far to conclude that these banters really have some effect on the character build of the MC or in the plot but from what I read, it does not provide the right hook for readers to grow attached to the characters.

F. Technicalities

Apart from the dashes (I read the author's note, so I understand), there are consistent punctuation errors in dialogue and in narration. There are also bouts of dialogue exposition and info-dumping in terms of characters recounting their pasts that aided in dragging the story on some parts.

Overall Impression

DNF at 31%. I would not be able to give this story a proper rating.

So yeah. You have a good story in your hands and a good world waiting to be shown forth. I am sorry but I really wanted to like your story but yeah. Keep writing and keep improving. You have a long journey ahead of you. :)