Review - End of the Line

End of the Line
by Alison R. Randall
Date: 2010
Publisher: East of the Web
Reading level: C
Book type: short story
Pages: 7
Format: e-book
Source: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/

"When Frank and I stepped through the post office doors, there was a crowd..."

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Why do I keep reading these? I must be a masochist.

This is a very simple story that has an interesting setting. Unfortunately, although it's for kids, it also reads like it was written by a kid. The villains are ridiculous, the resolution is facile and trite, the characterization is inconsistent, and the editing is pretty bad.

The story is narrated by Liza, an eleven-year-old girl in an old Western town. Other characters keep saying how she talks too much, but we're not shown anything like a chatterbox; maybe she's considered talkative next to her twin brother, who's almost pathologically quiet. Frank, her brother, doesn't say much, and when Liza seems flabbergasted that he thought to try to free himself after they were tied up (which doesn't seem like a particularly startling idea to me), I had to wonder if he had some sort of intellectual delay. The villains are more like cartoon caricatures, and they're so underdeveloped that their actions don't make a lot of sense. I wasn't impressed with any of the characters, really.

I was rolling my eyes pretty hard by the end of this. It almost seems like a short story an elementary-school kid was tasked with writing. The plot twists are unrealistic, and the characters are stereotypes. I can't recommend this one at all.

Plot: 1/5
Characters: 1/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 1/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall Rating: 1.29 out of 5 ladybugs