[Review] Look Closer - Stewart Lewis

Summary: Ever since Tegan's father died while serving overseas, she's been numb. But then seemingly random names start to appear in unlikely places—a cereal box, a windowsill, a food wrapper. As Tegan begins to track down people with those names, she sees a pattern begin to form: The names she sees point to people who will die that same day.

Then Tegan meets a mysterious friend of one of the dead, and they begin a desperate attempt to save these people from their fate. Tegan changes lives that summer, just like her father used to. But can she change her own? (Pub Date: Feb 05, 2019)

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Too rushed but promising. Deserves a 2.5, still it lacked effort to go beyond that.

Tega has lost her father and still trying to get over it. She's abandoned competitive swimming and isn't too enthusiastic about college. That's when she starts seeing names of people about to die. As she tries to save those, her life and the way she deals with it also seem to be saved along.

This is a good plot and the main character at least is very easy to relate. In other words, the book was off to a good start. Not that the conclusion wasn't good, it actually was very fitting. If I should point the main issue, it would be lack of editing, or at least good editing. Most of the writing seemed rushed, things happen much too fast for us to get a taste of the events and enjoy everything. I have no idea, but it looked like a first book or maybe one almost right out of a Nano-like speed challenge. I know there was planning but there weren't enough rewritings, perhaps.

On the other hand, I liked the writer and will be reading more from him given the chance. It was far from a bad experience and I will say go ahead if you want to read it, especially to support someone with such a nice and different idea. But it's a pity this didn't get more time to be perfected.



Rating: 2 out of 5.