"Anonymous" by Aaron Smith

★★

Everyone's an author nowadays...

...but many shouldn't be.

​That's the case here. Harsh? Maybe, but I'm tired of picking up books that have a great cover (some don't even have that) with decent reviews, only to feel deceived. This book has a "you don't know who to trust" feel and that goes for the reviewers of this book.

​As with so many getting tossed onto the market these days, it's hard to know where to begin explaining why the low mark because there are just so many reasons. One of the easiest is the absolutely horrible grammar. There's so many issues, it would take all day to point our every example. This book is riddled with grammatical and punctuation errors as to make one wonder if this ever crossed paths with an editor.

​The characters were akin to a wading pool rather than the ocean (in other words, zero depth). If not well developed, the reader cannot possibly care what happens to them, and I certainly didn't.

​Dialogue was beyond unbelievable. Stilted, forced, and at times ridiculous. I tried to find just one example although I could probably give about a hundred.
​     Example: First, Zendae and Carter are smoking a joint and Zendae threatens to beat Carter because he comments that he'll only take a single drag because he likes to keep his mind clear at work. She says: "Normally, I would take that as an insult and feel offended (redundant & why should she care if he wants to keep a clear head at work?) "However, given the current circumstances, I will let this one slide. (What circumstances? There's nothing happening). "I'll have to give you a good beating tomorrow to make up for it, though." (Is that supposed to be witty?). OK...after Carter takes his hit off the joint, he asks "Did you hear about the new scandal at work?" to which Zendae chuckles, "There are so many scandals at work that I could be doing the breaststroke through my office." (Huh? What's the breaststroke got to do with office gossip?).

​The only reason for two stars instead of one is because the story actually has potential to be decent. Not great, but decent. For me, this is a pass.