Gabe is feeling the pressure. His family has money troubles, he’s
hardly talking to his dad, plus lowlife Benny is on his case. Needing
some space to think, he heads off into the hills surrounding LA. And he
suddenly stumbles across a secret that will change everything. A shallow
grave.Gabe doesn’t think twice about taking the gold bracelet he finds buried there. Even from the clutches of skeletal hands. But he has no idea what he’s awakening…
This story is terrible and drawn out. There just so many random elements throw in, like drugs. Seriously, my biggest problem with this book is the random drug angle that I just have no idea what its meant to add besides, you know drugs are bad kiddies. It does serve some decent plot points, but those points could have served by another waiter. It was just kinda dumb. Also the character is actually better off after suffering a curse because of this angle and I saw it coming miles off what was going to happen.
Most of my enjoyment came out of google translating "Quod Meum est Mei, noli prohibere" and seeing the different odd things it said it meant: "That would be my fear stop me", "That would be my dear, do not stop", "That is mine, My Father , do not forbid."I also translate what the book said it meant into this "Mea mihi noli prohibere". Still, I find it odd that the main character's first instinct wasn't to google translate it, even if it was clearly wrong, its not like it was Arabic or Chinese where the alphabet was different from English.
The teens in this don't seem very teeny. For example, there is a character that uses "Bro" and "Dude" a sentence after one another, in a life or death situation. You won't bother with that in that situation and only the most annoying person would use those in a sentence after one another.
The parents while there, though we had delayed introduction for some reason, they felt like they were missing considering the emphasis on the family's troubles. Also characters coming and going out of the story felt very orchestrated and not at all a nature process. My favourite character is the Priest who sounds like he belongs on daytime crime show.
This book wasn't scary, it did love it's weak gore though. There's no tension, which might also account to why it dragged on so much for me. The attempts to create tension were weird, I'm just going to say "imaginary Sniper". I had gave up hope for the book after that.
The plot is boring and it stretched out a lot. I wasn't even half way through the book, when I started wanting it to end. Also there is this big plot point that we never got an answer to. I think this plot could have worked. I was at first put off by the setting because with the over-saturation of American YA, UKYA being set in America with no British characters is disappointing, but the setting is necessary for the plot, it would not make sense if it was set at the coast in Wales. However, as I'm writing this I've already thought of a way for this to work with at least one British Character. It would also get rid of that dumb drug angle.
Overall, I gave this 2 out of 5 stars for Grave Robbing. I'm really hoping this is the worst of the Red Eye series as it's this first one I've read but I'm planning on reading and reviewing the other three (lets just that the next one I'm reviewing is four stars).
I got this off NetGalley for review and it published by Stripes Publishing on the 4th May 2015.
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