Novel Review: Minor Snobs by Daniel Amory

It's a pretty cover, and fitting.

Genre: Adult Contemporary

Rating (Out of 5): ~2

Publisher: Patron Press

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Minor Snobs is a portrait of a new generation coming of age in the 21st century. Pulsating with the rhythms of contemporary America, it is the story of competing dreams colliding in a chronicle of youth. Set in Chicago, Minor Snobs introduces Tom Sanders, a handsome, conscientious, and astute young law graduate. Amid a vivid, fevered summer following graduation, the story follows Tom as he becomes a witness to obsession and tragedy, hate and love, violence and passion, and hope and despair.

Something Specific:

Quote:

• "I have had conflicting thoughts as to whether I should write about last summer because whenever you write about friends you feel a sort of breach in what is a series of spoken confidences." I just thought this was interesting, and somewhat true: how it sometimes seems like you shouldn't talk about certain things, or record them in writing, when it could be a 'secret' between you and a friend, or because it could slander a friends' image.
• "A dream is only a dream if you are not awake, I thought to myself." This was mentioned one other time in the book, but I didn't fully understand it until this instance; and I liked it, then.

Review:

I don’t think I really have a lot to say about this book.

It was a bit below average, I didn’t really enjoy it, I’m glad it was so short. Not a lot happened throughout the book, I didn’t really get to know any of the characters, and the ending just kind of jumped out of nowhere.

The characters didn’t really get expanded on, I didn’t form a connection with any of them, and so I didn’t particularly feel anything for any of them. We met a lot of characters, too. Daniel, the main character, just seemed to be watching everything and not really participating in anything. There was a love interest, who we only saw, about, three times or something, and didn’t really get to know anything about. I also didn’t really know much of anything about his friends, or at least not enough, even though they were kind of the focus. I think someone else related this book to The Great Gatsby, how it was structured with the main character watching some tragedy happen with his friends, and I see the similarities, but this was not done nearly as well or as interesting.

The writing wasn’t very good, it was in present tense, and it didn’t suck me in in any way. There weren’t any/many spelling or grammar errors, so that was nice. However, there were several instances where the sentence structure didn’t make sense, and/or the way something was phrased could have been a lot less complicated and/or long with fewer words used.

This was just not very good, in my opinion. I’m sure there are some people who disagree, so maybe this book was just not for me.

A review copy was provided by Goodreads First Reads Giveaways. Thank you!