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A review by m_ess
Chasing Destiny by Eric Jerome Dickey
2.0
I think it may be the trashiest, most morally bankrupt book I've ever read, and I've read a lot of men's adventure fiction. It's awesome, in the horrible ironic sense the word has recently acquired.
First: credit where credit is due. The dialogue is amazing. And it's all perfectly pitched. Everyone in this book is incredibly melodramatic. It's like a soap opera on the page. You almost don't have to imagine the smash zooms and cheap key lighting. It's right there. It's in the dialogue. It's not even subtext. Characters talk about it. They compare themselves to the movies the author is ripping off. Shit is text.
That said, make no mistake, Chasing Destiny is a very, very bad book. Sure, it started strong, but by page ten I was rolling my eyes. The entire book exists at a level of simultaneous hand-wringing and voyeurism normally found on true crime TV shows and Law and Order: SVU. Conversations meandered on. Critical scenes were cut short. Words, phrases, facts and metaphors are repeated an nauseum in the space of a few pages and then immediately forgotten. The massive character count and interconnection of events bogs down the narrative. A lot goes down but it takes hundreds of pages for the plot to progress even the tiniest amount. Then, Spoilers: The book falls apart. The ending is stretched and scattered to the point of anticlimax. The uplifting conclusion? It's the revelation that the entire book was a short and relatively pointless episode, one of many bad break-ups in the main character's life.
I know that by writing about it I've made this book sound much more interesting than it actually is. I know what you're thinking.
"That sounds interesting."
"It can't be that bad."
"Trashy is exactly what I'm looking for."
Perhaps even, "Those are all features, not bugs. Leave poor EJD alone. He knows what he's doing."
I want to set the record straight. Eric Jerome Dickey makes more money than god, so yeah, maybe he knows what he's doing, maybe he's exactly where he wants to be, but where he wants to be sucks. This book was hard to get through. This book hates women. This book needed an editor. This book wants to be porn and a pastor at the same time, but isn't particularly good at either. Was this book entertaining? Yes. Kind of. If you feel the urge to spend your time on this book, by all means indulge it. I did. But this book wasn't worth it.
First: credit where credit is due. The dialogue is amazing. And it's all perfectly pitched. Everyone in this book is incredibly melodramatic. It's like a soap opera on the page. You almost don't have to imagine the smash zooms and cheap key lighting. It's right there. It's in the dialogue. It's not even subtext. Characters talk about it. They compare themselves to the movies the author is ripping off. Shit is text.
That said, make no mistake, Chasing Destiny is a very, very bad book. Sure, it started strong, but by page ten I was rolling my eyes. The entire book exists at a level of simultaneous hand-wringing and voyeurism normally found on true crime TV shows and Law and Order: SVU. Conversations meandered on. Critical scenes were cut short. Words, phrases, facts and metaphors are repeated an nauseum in the space of a few pages and then immediately forgotten. The massive character count and interconnection of events bogs down the narrative. A lot goes down but it takes hundreds of pages for the plot to progress even the tiniest amount. Then, Spoilers: The book falls apart. The ending is stretched and scattered to the point of anticlimax. The uplifting conclusion? It's the revelation that the entire book was a short and relatively pointless episode, one of many bad break-ups in the main character's life.
I know that by writing about it I've made this book sound much more interesting than it actually is. I know what you're thinking.
"That sounds interesting."
"It can't be that bad."
"Trashy is exactly what I'm looking for."
Perhaps even, "Those are all features, not bugs. Leave poor EJD alone. He knows what he's doing."
I want to set the record straight. Eric Jerome Dickey makes more money than god, so yeah, maybe he knows what he's doing, maybe he's exactly where he wants to be, but where he wants to be sucks. This book was hard to get through. This book hates women. This book needed an editor. This book wants to be porn and a pastor at the same time, but isn't particularly good at either. Was this book entertaining? Yes. Kind of. If you feel the urge to spend your time on this book, by all means indulge it. I did. But this book wasn't worth it.