Broken by Travis Thrasher

I read Travis Thrasher's last novel called Isolation. It was one of the most depressing books that I have ever read. This one is not much different. I gave this one the best effort I could and I still had to start skimming. There are flashbacks and twists and flipping from one character to another which is just not done well enough for the reader to have a comfortable story flow read.

Thrasher uses a gimmick which is basically cheating the reader. When the main character knows everything, but the author holds back the information, the trust between author and reader is destroyed. When the reader is given bits and pieces of information to piece together as in a mystery, it is far different because the protagonist has either memory loss or doesn't know any more than the reader, therefore it is a proper tension builder which the reader can trust. When the protagonist knows all the details and the reader knows nothing, it is a cheap way to build tension which destroys any kind of trust a reader could have in the author.

The reader is told about ruthless violence, extreme angst of the main character, without any reasons given or hints of reasons except for the murder. But why did the protag have such fear, and why did she change her name and leave town? I really wish MEN would quit trying to get into the heads of women in novels. They just can't do it, so why try? They do not understand us so it rarely works. Because of this, interest wanes after about the fourth chapter.

I give this a * one star out of five at best. The one star comes from the story premise which is very good. If it had been told in a more straightforward manner, and if it had been told from one POV instead of several, then it would rate **** four stars. The execution just didn't match the premise.

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Broken
FaithWords (May 25, 2010)
by
Travis Thrasher
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

It was during third grade after a teacher encouraged him in his writing and as he read through The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis that Travis decided he wanted to be a writer. The dream never left him, and allowed him to fulfill that dream of writing fulltime in 2007.


Travis Thrasher is the author of numerous works of fiction, including his most personal and perhaps his deepest work, Sky Blue, that was published in summer of 2007. This year he has to novels published, Out of the Devil’s Mouth, and a supernatural thriller, Isolation.

Travis is married to Sharon and they are the proud parents of Kylie, born in November, 2006, and Hailey, a Shih-Tzu that looks like an Ewok. They live in suburban Chicago.

Stop by and visit Travis at his Blog where you can sign up to follow him on Facebook and Twitter!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Laila had it all--love, family, wealth, and faith. But when her faith crumbles, her world falls apart and Laila finds herself living an empty, dangerous life as a call girl in Chicago.

When she is threatened, Laila shoots and kills a client in self-defense, sending herself into a spiral of guilt and emptiness. Six months later, she is trying to move on, but she's haunted by the past. She hasn't told anyone about the man she killed, and she's still estranged from her family.

When she is approached by a stranger who says he knows what she did, Laila has no choice but to run. But the stranger stays close behind, and Laila begins having visions of the man she killed. Little does she know she's being hounded by something not of this world, something that knows her deepest, darkest secret.

Scared and wandering, will Laila regain her trust in God to protect her from these demons? Or will her plea for salvation come too late?

If you would like to read the first chapter of Broken, go HERE.