DNF: The Exile by Eric Buffington (Melissa’s review)

The Exile (Stones of Power Book 1)
written by Eric Buffington
published by Center One Publishing

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Smashwords, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange  for an honest review.

Where I stopped reading: 47.2% through the book (chapter 19) on my MoonReader app

Why I stopped reading: By the time I got to the end of the prologue I realized I’d be working around the writing to find the story, and I was okay with that.  Not every great storyteller is a great writer, and not every great writer can tell a decent story.  I kept with it because I think Buffington’s story has a lot of potential.  I gave up because at the halfway point I found myself bogged down in seemingly irrelevant plot.

Who knows.  Maybe everything is going to fall into place during chapter 20, and maybe I’m doing Buffington a disservice by giving up on him before I’ve read the whole thing.  In the end, though, the story line was what kept me reading, and at 47.2% of the way through the book it let me down.  Without a reason to gloss over the grammatical inefficiencies, I didn’t have a reason to keep reading either.

 

What others have rated this book: According to Goodreads, the average rating for The Exile is 4.31 stars out of 13 ratings. It looks like a majority of readers gave this book 5 stars. There were 5 5 star reviews on Amazon. At Barnes & Noble there were no listed reviews. Just because I didn’t finish this book doesn’t mean you won’t.

About the book – from Goodreads: In a world where each person is born with a magic ability, the island of Denall is on the verge of an attack from a power hungry sorcerer, Mordyar, as he scours the world in search of the Stones of Power. While the stones are gathering and their power begins to be revealed, four boys leave their village on a rite of passage into adulthood and are swept into an adventure that will make men and heroes of them, if they can survive.