Review: The Emergence by A.O. Khalil

Tuesday 12 May 2015


Title: The Emergence

Author: A.O. Khalil

Release Date: May 19th, 2015

Book one of the Missing Era series

Rating:


Review:

Sinkholes have started appearing in cities around the world and soon people begin to disappear. At first there are only a few but then the entire army disappears in one night. But it isn't until murderous dwarves start crawling out of the sinkholes that panic really sets in. Dubbed the "Uglies" by Jay, the dwarves have only one intention: kill every human in sight. Jay and his wife Jule set off on a journey to save their families and stay safe whilst trying to figure out where the creatures come from.

The plot is really intriguing and I generally enjoyed it. There is a lot of mystery, a lot of action and the writing is gripping.

However, the main character, Jay, is irritating. I can appreciate that he's in a situation that isn't normal but he just comes across as really arrogant. I do think he had good intentions but probably didn't execute them in the right way. He made himself the leader, which is fine, but a good leader is able to use the strengths of his teammates and accept help without needing praise all the time.

It is also very much a male-dominated story. The women are constantly cut off every time they want to try and help. Again, the intentions are probably good here, the men want to protect their family, but women are good fighters too. They can do more than wrap bandages and tell the men how brave they are. I appreciated that the women started to go against the men's orders in the later parts of the book but they were still a bit too submissive for my liking. I wanted them to be stronger and stand up to the men.

I think there are too many characters. I couldn't tell a lot of them apart. There isn't much character development which is probably due to having to write about so many of them. It would have been nice to see more from the point of view of the children or the women.

The cliffhanger at the end is what you call an extreme cliffhanger! It ends just as we begin to discover what the creatures actually are and what they want. It does leave a lot of material left to be explored in a sequel though. I think the plot is a really cool idea and I did enjoy it but it could benefit from the characters being developed more to really make it stand out.

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25068662-the-emergence

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