Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Hey there. Are you the person who throws out the 1 and 5 star reviews and reads the 4's - 2's? Me too. So this review is for you. Let's begin with one question: what is a story? A story (loosely described) is a series of escalating conflicts that result in a climax and ultimately a resolution of some nature. I knew I was not in good hands about 30% into the story. While her prose is decent, and the quirk of writing from the POV of the 5 year old boy not quite as gimmicky as it sounds, the story is a short story, not novel length. I was initially intrigued by the writer's story and wondered just what the hell was going on...but then after going through the boy's days about 20 times...it was clear the writer was simply thinking of "what different things could I do, if I were trapped in a room?" and not TELLING A STORY. It get's monotonous, fast. Many people complained about the escape scene, I thought it was okay. I can stretch my disbelief in that area, just fine. Where I can't is that Jack, the young boy in the book, seems so maladjusted. And he has a TV. That's the biggest problem. The writer should have never put a television in the room. You see, TVs are what train most people's kids whether they like it or not. Kids learn life lessons, they learn how to treat others, they learn how to talk to other people, etc. But the writer seemed to forget this and made Jack into some kid who couldn't determine if someone was speaking directly to him or someone else...unbelievable. To the extreme. Also, once the escape is over....THE STORY IS BASICALLY OVER...if you are looking for some excitement, or some interesting twist later in the book, there is none. The writer just starts following Jack on very boring days of him experiencing things over and over and over and over and over again. Look, I've had three kids, I know the routine, it's really not that interesting to see this kid learn new things. Sorry. The problem is, the writer put the climax in the middle of the book. The last half is just resolution...there is no more story, there is no more conflict to drive the story forward.