Thursday, September 8, 2011

Review: "Beasts and BFF's" by Shannon Delaney

"Beasts and BFF's" (13 to Life Prequel)
by Shannon Delaney

Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal
Reading Grade: Young Adult (short story)
Publishing Type: traditional
Publication Date: December 17, 2010
Source: Kindle store (freebie)
Age Rating: 12+

Meet Jessie Gillmansen as she realizes that things might not be what they seem in the town of Junction.


My Review

This is a such a super short and plotless story, it is clearly designed only to get the reader to read the preview to the first 13 to Life novel. There's nothing wrong with sticking in a preview to the next installment of a story, but I expect the main story I'm reading to be an actual story. This reads like watching only the opening scene to a teen horror flick.

It goes like this: three teenage girls go for a run out in the woods. The redhead hates the blonde and the brunette is friends with both. Some scary unseen beast growls in the bushes nearby and scares them half-do-death, then takes off. Redhead's boyfriend drives up, is seen talking to the hot captain of the football team, and the girls all pile into the redhead's boyfriend's car to go watch said hot football captain practice. The. End.

What is that? That isn't a story! Thirty percent of what was in my Kindle file was the above “story” and the remaining seventy percent was the beginning preview of the first novel. This prequel did nothing to convince me to read it because it showed me how disinterested the author was in writing it. What's more, I can easily read the preview to the first 13 to Life novel on my Kindle by downloading a free sample. This short “story” gave me a tiny glimpse of some characters that I never got to care about. It was completely pointless.

My score: 2 out of 5 stars.

6 comments:

  1. Yikes! Sounds like this backfired as a promotional effort. I get frustrated, too, when I feel like my reading time has been wasted. I take it you won't be reading the novel?

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  2. @BJ: It totally backfired. And, no, I don't think I want to read the novel. The story just didn't sell me on the series, like it was supposed to. It was a complete waste of 20 minutes reading it.

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  3. It's horrible when authors insult our intelligence by putting out these teaser prequels and don't put in any effort. That's why I don't like reading prequels or spin offs so much. Although I haven't read a stellar review of 13 to Life either so maybe the book just isn't worth it altogether.

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  4. @Lan: I completely agree! I didn't know that the reviews for 13 to Life weren't very good, so that makes me feel a bit better. Maybe that is why this prequel was bad. Thanks for that info!

    @Rhiannon: Thanks so much and thanks for following!

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  5. I've noticed that a lot of Kindle freebies fall into this pattern. It's a shame, because I'd actually be willing to read some of their stuff if they put in more effort to make the prequel/preview stuff good. :/

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  6. So true, Alyssa! This is such a problem, making me almost give up on them.

    But, I found a good Kindle freebie out there that I just read, called "Drop Dead" by Jon F. Merz. It's adult urban fantasy and it totally rocked, even though it was short. I'll be reviewing it soon on my blog, so check that out!

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