This was… a mess, to say the least.

I was so hyped with the title, and the premise, and the prologue had me all hooked up.

But then the story lost me. It was jumping all over the place, with plot points that seemed important but couldn’t really connect with each other. I should know. I read up to 50 or so pages. A book’s supposed to capture you and hold you there from the first chapter – though some would argue they need at least a good enough first paragraph to really bother. I personally give a book enough of a chance to turn things around, which is why I read up to 50 pages before I let it be.

I’m sorry to say, even that 50-page mark was a feat not easily achieved. I dragged it on and on, and I had to keep pushing myself to go on reading. There was a lot of technological jargon in there, which is a big no-no when you write fiction – you want your readers to know what is what, sure, but you also need to keep them engaged. Someone who isn’t much of a fan of this field will easily lose interest.

The next problem was the characters. It started with some nazis, then we jumped to Ramos bickering with that woman who wasn’t his girl but he wanted her to be his girl, spent entirely too many chapters following Ramos’s adventures and scheming (for a moment there I got scared this was one of the main characters, and thank God he died, I wouldn’t have been able to keep reading without puking), and then boom! A date at an airport (?) that’s followed by a murder of a woman we haven’t met up to page I-can’t-remember-the-number-but-it-was-higher-than-30, aaaaaand…. I’m lost. I like challenges when reading, but this was too hard even for me.

And can we stop reading about EVERY. SINGLE. CHARACTER’S. THOUGHTS?! We don’t care! The pace is not only gone at this point, it’s retired and sending us postcards from Hawaii or whatever!

Finally, the paragraphs. Oh my GOD, I’m known to write long-ass paragraphs, but this thing put even my writing to shame! Can you say big? It tires a reader to have to look at a page where the text is almost entirely the same in structure, like an essay that was never edited, just dumped on the paper. Add the whole “tech-jargon” I was talking about earlier in the mix, and I feel like I was reading an encyclopedia fanfic, no joke.

It pains me that I lost so much time on this book, right before December, having to worry about completing my yearly reading challenge – I could have read so many other books in the meantime!

***I was given an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinion stated in this review is solely mine, and no compensation was given or taken to alter it.***

A mysterious object discovered buried in the Devil’s Triangle sets about a collision course of various factions trying to obtain it for their own ends. A very interesting speculation on one of history’s darkest times. Be prepared to read this book in one sitting! I received an ARC from NetGalley and the opinions expressed are my own.