Sliver of Truth (Ridley Jones Series #2) Book

This sequel to "Beautiful Lies" (which I enjoyed), was a flop from beginning to end. Although I didn't care much for the opening of the book, where the narrator's approach in bringing the reader "up to speed" just seemed annoying, I still at that point held out hope for a good plot. Unfortunately, the plot was merely acceptable, nothing more.

Yet, even with that'the annoying opening and the merely acceptable plot'I might still have at least found the book passably entertaining, had it not been for the hack job that the author did on the protagonist. Whereas our "heroine" came off as likeable, intelligent, spunky, and even somewhat complex in the first book, here she just comes off as foolish, irresponsible, and just not at all as likeable as before.

Too add to the mess, some of the choices that the author has made for the storyline just seem so incredibly implausible. For example, the ridiculous love scenes that materialize out of the blue at the most implausible of moments. It's almost as though the author couldn't decide if she wanted to write chick lit or a bona fide suspense/thriller and decided to jarringly switch between the two styles, even within the same chapter.

Another trivial, but illustrative, example is when when she has the protagonist'who is on serious antibiotics at this time while also chasing down a lead through a dangerous, unknown nightclub'drinking beer. I don't know if I should be hating the author at this point for such a stupid implausible choice for her character, or hating the character! Like I said, trivial, but illustrative.

The author also takes a lot of time to dish out the protagonist's feelings in very silly and repetetive teaspoon doses, as though spoonfeeding them to a reader having problems either grasping or remembering the emotions at play in the story.

So, for example, you have a line like, "I was still naive enough to believe that somehow everything was going to be okay," the likes of which crop up all over the story. Unfortunately, the average reader is probably not naive enough to swallow these lame lines this many times in one novel.

Or this gem: "I know, I was being pathetic, a total girl. I needed to focus, so I did." Get that? She just did. If only it were that easy for the reader to stop seeing this character as pathetic at this point.

Incidentally, unless a book is atrocious, I generally finish what I start reading, and this was no exception'but, I did have to take a break every few chapters to read something less frustrating and more enjoyable for a while.

In short, this was a major disappointment following the decent and entertaining first book. I would recommend stopping after the first and going out on a relatively high note.