Just Half An Hour

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First off, heads up… This one was a DNF (Did Not Finish).

I have a personal philosophy when it comes to movies… I don’t believe the opinions of movie critics about movies because 9.5 times out of 10 I completely disagree with their final assessments.

If they love it, I’m pretty sure I’ll hate it and if they despise it, I will most likely enjoy it.

Why I thought that would be any different when it came to books, I don’t know. The rave reviews by other authors (some renowned and others not) should have been my first clue that I probably wouldn’t appreciate this particular novel.

The Premise

Scott Pensiera is fired from his job and all signs point to foul play of sorts. That’s because he has a daughter with cancer and her medical bills are likely going to cost his employer more money than they’re willing to cough up in insurance premiums.

His firing is set up to look like it was based on his performance but the idea is that it very likely isn’t.

Breaking It Down

If you’ve ever worked for someone else and felt slighted but simultaneously felt powerless then you’ll understand a bit of what the Simon character is experiencing.

The story started off well and though it didn’t initially grab me, I felt a crescendo every now and then within the first few chapters that kept me intrigued enough to keep reading.

There were a couple of twists that gave me the impression things were really going to get interesting but they just got dragged out for too long that I simply lost interest.

I actually made it way past the middle of the book, I believe I got to somewhere around chapter 28, 29, or 30, and having invested that much time I thought I might as well go all the way to the end to see how everything turned out.

Unfortunately, the story just didn’t keep my attention and the twists and turns just took too long to unravel without being gripping enough to keep me holding on.

There was a twinge of romance, a cast of characters that I think were meant to ring a bell with some but none really had much personality, and some other more ambiguous players along the way.

Final Analysis

I was really hopeful that I would enjoy this book and others by this particular author (of which there are many), so much so, I actually borrowed three books by her from the library at the time I borrowed this one.

Alas, it was not to be so. I returned them all when I gave up on this one.

A part of me is curious to know how the story ended but not curious enough to read it myself to find out. I’ll also add that it wasn’t all bad… There were some storylines that I wished for a bit more of but didn’t get.

For example, there was a nice little romance with one of the main characters and I would have liked their relationship to have been a bit more developed but it wasn’t/ It was more of an aside.

Now, I’m not really a huge romance novel reader, but I do like interesting human relationships.

If you’ve read this book to the very end, please feel free to tell me in the comments section below how it ended.