Review: 14

I love to find books that breaks the rules. I hear a lot of the same advice about writing cause I go to a lot of conventions and workshops and I hang out with people who also attend those conventions and workshops so things echo in my bubble. So when I find a book that flaunts some of those conventions and best practices and makes it work, there's a special part, mostly smug little piece, of me that jumps up and down.

14's sin is that it's slow. It's disturbingly slow. It takes such a deliberate pace with the introduction of its primary conceit that it shouldn't work, but it's got such a strong sense of perspective and style that I just kept going. And that's a thing I do anyway. I have to finish books, but this book drew me through. A lot of time novels with difficult openings require a lot of force and interest from me, and my enjoyment relates a lot to how much energy i have to give and how excited I am to give it. 14 gives back. For every chapter I read about a boring office job I flew threw a new explanation of green cockroaches. 

And when we finally get to the real meat of the story, I was totally unprepared for how far Clines was going to go with the mystery elements it builds the majority of the story with. 14 gets 4 stars out of 5.