{"id":871,"date":"2017-11-02T15:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T21:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=871"},"modified":"2017-11-02T15:59:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T21:59:30","slug":"book-universe-awakening-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/02\/book-universe-awakening-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Universe: Awakening (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Universe:Universe: Awakening<\/u><\/strong>
\nYear: 2017
\nAuthor: D. Ellis Overttun
\nLength: 317 pages<\/p>\n

***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM THE AUTHOR***<\/p>\n

The idiom of \u201cdon\u2019t judge a book by its cover\u201d does not apply to Universe: Awakening<\/em>. With a blurry and indistinct image that has a few colored boxes and basic sans-serif fonts slapped on top, it\u2019s no wonder that the content inside is practically pointless. Furthermore, while there was an \u201cawakening\u201d in a flashback, and the book takes place in the universe, I suppose the title means something . . . not that it\u2019s apparent to the reader. In fact, as this is the first book in the \u201cTerra Nova\u201d series, I can say those two words describe it adequately. \u201cTerra\u201d translates to \u201cdirt,\u201d which describes the clunky \u201ctell instead of show\u201d style of exposition (imagine reading someone doing Google searches for endless amounts of pages). \u201cNova\u201d translates to \u201cnot going,\u201d which describes the overall plot (every single scene had no point, and there was no urgency to anything the characters did).<\/p>\n

To be honest, I had a strong urge to stop reading after the first chapter (which was actually the prologue). The characters (which you never see again) in this section were loud and obnoxious. Unfortunately, the overuse of \u201call caps\u201d and exclamation points for emphasis is rampant throughout. Not that any of the other characters were particularly interesting, had any motivations, or stood out in any way. The main character was practically incompetent, and the two \u201cangels\u201d were indistinguishable from each other. While human descriptions and idioms were used for the characters, none of them were actually human, thus creating a huge disconnect to the reader. For some reason, of which I have yet to determine, I forced myself to finish reading this book to the end. I was so mad with how bad this book was; I felt physically ill for enduring it.<\/p>\n

So much was wrong with this book, I don\u2019t know if I have enough space to cover it all. From the overt spiritual references of \u201cauras\u201d (essentially a cheap cheat to show character emotions) and the inclusion of archangels Michael and Gabriel, as well as an antiquated Catholic call and response (pretty sure they say \u201cand with your spirit\u201d instead of \u201cand also with you\u201d nowadays), the attempted fusion of science and religion felt forced and unnecessary. The punctuation had much to be desired, especially in the internal quotes, but even more so in the missing commas. Furthermore, while there weren\u2019t that many homophone errors, the ones that were there were pretty egregious (not knowing the difference between \u201cnaval\u201d and \u201cnavel\u201d as well as \u201celicit\u201d and \u201cillicit\u201d create vastly different meanings). Overall, I would suggest that this author stop writing any further books in this series until he sits down with a good content and proofreading editor and fixes the severe issues this book clearly has.<\/p>\n

A book that wasn\u2019t worth my time, I give Universe: Awakening<\/em> 0.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

1\/2<\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universe: Awakening Year: 2017 Author: D. Ellis Overttun Length: 317 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM THE AUTHOR*** The idiom of \u201cdon\u2019t judge a book by its cover\u201d does not apply to Universe: Awakening. With a blurry and indistinct image that has a few colored boxes and basic sans-serif fonts slapped on top, it\u2019s no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[956,54],"tags":[349,55,958,960,959,8,961,957],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-0-5-stars","category-book","tag-349","tag-book","tag-d-ellis-overttun","tag-obnoxious-characters","tag-pointless-plot","tag-review","tag-terra-nova-series","tag-universe-awakening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}