Eleven Months of Hell by China Ball
By Jennifer Coissiere • Sep 30th, 2008 • Category: Book Review •
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Nightmare in One Woman’s Life
Eleven Months of Hell by China Ball is a fictionalized story based on real life events. Within the first few pages, I was introduced to the beginning of the end of a relationship. I thought that technique was unique enough, because not too many authors start you off with the end, and then back track explaining what led the characters to the place they were in their life.
Ms. Ball led me to believe I was going to be reading about a woman who was strong and had a stable head on her shoulders within the first few chapters. But, I soon came to the realization Mercedes was another woman, able to give advice to others, but continuously repeating the same foolish mistakes in her life. Mercedes was a Petty Officer in the Navy, stationed in Greece. Being so far away from home she did the best she could with making friends, and trying to entertain herself and not focus solely on her son, Max, her sister, Pearl, and other members of her family.
Mercedes was the type of woman who would take things slowly; trying to get to know a man better before she called him more than just her friend. She did not jump from one man’s bed to the next man’s, but could she say the same for the man she was with at the moment? Every man to ever come into Mercedes life had something hidden in their past; something they did not want anyone else to know about, most of all Mercedes. Would Mercedes see what they were hiding or would she find out the hard way time and time again?
Eleven Months of Hell had great potential to be a wonderful, drama-filled, page-turning twisted story, however there were shortcomings. The plot was there but the structural, grammatical, and all around poor editing was very distracting. Two characters speaking in one paragraph, comma placement, quotation marks missing, and the constant point-of-view changing mid-sentence or mid-paragraph was unnerving. I had to read certain sentences over and over again to understand what was being told. The visual description was lacking in certain areas, where I as a reader believe it should have been. I have never been to Athens, Greece so I do not know anything about the area and I still do not. A story with this much drama should not be told but shown, and for me it was told.
I believe if Ms. Ball has Eleven Months of Hell properly edited it would make for an extremely fast-paced wonderful read. I cannot at this time recommend this selection to anyone in its current condition. However, once it is edited professionally, I believe anyone would enjoy it, because the plot is just that good.
Jennifer Coissiere
APOOO BookClub
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Jennifer Coissiere is an aspiring author, a mother, and a wife. She has been reading books as far back as her memory will allow her to remember. She has always used books as an escape from her everyday life. Her passion for words became evident to her English teacher in the eighth grade. Since then Jennifer has been writing non-stop, but it was not until 2006 when she finally realized her passion. She reviews books because she truly loves reading, and wants to spread the word to more than just the people she knows.
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And this is the very reason that I have trouble reading lately which also affects my writing. Although most of my writing these days are for school I cannot seem to write for personal reasons. The poor editing thing just bothers me and throws me off. My mind starts to drift after being annoyed because I had to reread a sentence 4x. Also the flip flop in point of view in one paragraph or a typo can mess the whole book up for me. If I continue on, I end up having to stop for a long period of time trying to figure out if the typo from 3 chapters back was really a typo. Omigod!! it’s pain. lol.
I just feel like people are just pumping out books to pump them out. I have a couple of books stacked up that I need to try to read. It’s sad because I read one good one and run in to two bad ones after that. Ugh!!
Deidra…I agree folks are putting out horribly written and edited books and then they want to get upset when readers bring it to their attention. It’s been a rough road for APOOO with some of the books that reviewers have read lately…but our goal continues to be to help readers make informed purchase decisions. If authors don’t have the money to bring a book correctly then I nor anyone should have the money to spend on something that lacks quality.