This was a DNF for me. My son 8/M and I read this together and he quit at chapter four, complaining that it was trying to be like Harry Potter. I tried to push through it to see if it would pick up or get better and it did not. I love YA books and usually read them before my son so I know what he’s reading and this just didn’t hold our attention.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book. This review is cross posted between Netgalley and Goodreads.

Andriego and the Weaver of Dreams is a young adult fantasy novel about three young friends going off to a highly respected school and getting caught up in Andriego's dream world. It's an interesting premise, but at 52 pages - just about 16% of the way through the book - I just can't get into it.

This is a young adult novel and it should be judged by young adult standards. That said, there are young adult stories, and even children's stories, that are so much better.

It's not that there's anything egregiously wrong here. The grammar and syntax and spelling is all fine and I haven't noticed any big errors. The main problem is that the writing style is just so twee that I can't stand it. The prose is incredibly purple. There is an overwhelming amount of adjectives, and everything seems superlative: the towers are not tall; they soar. The main characters are not joining a school; they are "in the presence of greatness" and "adding their voices to the history of this place."

I'm pretty good at suspending disbelief for an interesting story, but I have been told so many times how superlative these children, their homes, their town, and their school are that my eyes are rolling right out of my head and I cannot catch my breath.

Combined with the purple prose is a lot of telling rather than showing. I know the kids are adventurous and the Australian boy is cool...not because I've seen anything particularly adventurous or cool, but because the narrator keeps telling me so. I know that Andriego's stepdad is mysterious and hard to get along with...not because he's said or done anything particularly harsh, but because the narrator has told me all about Andriego's feelings.

At 52 pages, the kids have read an acceptance letter, read a book or two, gone for a walk, eaten breakfast, and suddenly began their school year. So little has happened among all the starry-eyed prose that I frankly just don't care about any of these characters.

So, I'm not going to finish this book.

Younger readers might fare a little better here in terms of not snorting at the superlatives, but I suspect the lack of action will turn many of them off as well. If readers can get past these quibbles, the premise is interesting enough and they might find themselves with a well liked new series. As for me, life is too short for mediocre writing like this.

A writing debut with potential that got crucified by a profound lack of editing, which leaves us with a confusing and confused mess full of purple prose. Should be a manuscript to revise, rewrite, and edit, not a published book.

CAWPILE rating:

Characters: 4
Atmosphere/Setting: 4
Writing Style: 3
Plot: 5
Intrigue: 4
Logic/Relationships: 4
Enjoyment: 4


Total: 28
Average: 4

★★☆☆☆


Let's start with the good thing: there is a story (that is not always a given, as I had to find out somewhat recently), and said story is, despite it borrowing heavily from other, quite well-known authors and their stories, not a bad one. The story is the main reason why this did not end up as a DNF; it kept me interested enough that I wanted to find out where it's going, how it will get there, and how it will end. Only, quite close to the end it fell off quite a bit, but then I was already that far in that I decided to get on with it and finish it. Might as well, now that I came that far, might I not.

Another sort-of-good-thing: this novel could be used as an example for aspiring authors on the subject of how-not-to-write and why you do not want to publish with a vanity press. Because, despite all its flaws, this story could have easily been polished into quite a decent book by a skilled editor. But, given the amount of mistakes (so many em-dashes that are totally out of place, quite a number of em-dashes that are not formatted as such, spelling mistakes, wrong word choices, misplaced commas, redundant spaces, missing quotation marks, etc.) still left in the ARC a few days after release day, I'd go out on a limp here and say: no editor has ever even had just a glimpse at this manuscript. They didn't even let a mediocre proofreader near it. If you do not believe me, just check how many times, in some of the earlier chapters, the word 'intricate' gets used. Yes, I get it; the author really likes that word. That's okay. Just make it a little bit less obvious and aggravating. A strong contender for second place is 'adorned', to be encountered quite a number of times later on in the book.

There is A LOT of telling instead of showing; the supporting characters are flat like pancakes and merely exist for the MMC's story, and the author, unfortunately, makes sure the reader is aware of it. There is a ridiculous amount of purple prose, and hives of adverbs live side-by-side with superlatives and repetitive descriptions.

The story feels incredible rushed, yet at the same time, due to all the purple prose, very much blown out of proportion. The author quite often rushes through character moments to get to the story part, but then brushes over the story part so he can rush back to the characters, who then get their moments rushed again to get back to the story part. Rinse and repeat, from start to finish, with a few exceptions - and those exceptions are what make me believe the author could do so much better.

The characters exist for the story; they have no real depth. Almost everything we learn about them is directly linked to the story, and most of it we get told by the author, they do not develop naturally throughout the story. Not exactly how you write intriguing characters. Or captivating stories.

I came very close to DNFing when, on top of all this, the book began to, needlessly and rather unexpectedly, venture into 'god is good' moments. Thankfully, those were few and short, with one exception towards the end (which really started to go on my nerves), or this would have ended up as a DNF. Mediocre writing is one thing; mediocre writing that gets preachy is ... nothing I wish to waste my time on.

That the title doesn't really fit, instead of 'Andreigo AND the Weaver of Dreams' it rather should be 'Andreigo OR the Weaver of Dreams' or 'Andreigo, Weaver of Dreams', goes together with the overall confused writing and quite chaotic storytelling.

Are those criteria YA readers will notice?

Some definitely are: the purple prose will grind their gears, I wager, as will the choice of overcomplicated words where a normal word would suffice, the artificial way the characters talk sometimes, and the way the story drags through (uninspired and bland, yet overly flowery) descriptions just for a few seconds of action.

They might forgive the rather flat and lifeless characters, the lack of worldbuilding, and the mediocre storytelling. If they will forgive the fact that this story occasionally gets rather in-your-face preachy might depend on their (attitude towards) religion or willingness to overlook this.

They will not forgive the fact that they have to read through 378, occasionally equally confused as confusing, pages for a story that could easily been told on approximately 120 pages, maybe even less. Unfortunately, I have the suspicion that this, in its current state, is the kind of story that's responsible for putting teenagers off reading books.

Which is a shame. Not just for the loss of future readers, but also for the author and his book, because - and I want to emphasise this - it does not have to be this way. The writing is salvageable with a good and dedicated editor or a bunch of decent beta-readers - ideally both. The story itself would make for an interesting and good YA novel if it got more room to breathe and develop (along with the characters), and the writing got some pruning, polish, and shine.

There is potential; unfortunately, most of it got lost in overwriting or got sacrificed to underwriting and underdeveloping. Ironically, as much as this may sound like a contradiction, this is entirely possible in the same book, at the same time. But despite all this, the book has some decent moments. Only, one needs to read through a lot of rather mediocre writing to get to them.

It's a debut, it's not a drama: some decent beta-readers and a skilled editor could do wonders to this story, and in the end we'd have a decent book, I am sure. Unfortunately, (skilled) editors are not something any vanity press will ever provide, and it shows glaringly.

I absolutely can not recommend this book in its current state; it's quite frankly not worth your time. There are so many much better books out there. Unless you are an author yourself and really want to know what all this 'don't overuse adverbs', 'show, don't tell', 'be careful when using purple prose', 'use the obvious choice of words', etc. writing advice is about, in that case you really want to read this, you will get almost all examples in one handy book. And once you read it, you will most definitely understand why 'thou shalt not write this way'.

Yet, despite all my qualms and all my criticism, and even despite the fact that this is definitely Christian fiction of the preachy kind - which absolutely is not my cup of tea -, I might be willing to give the second book in the series a try, if it's not again published by a vanity press and not within the next couple of months.

---

Transparency disclaimer: Receiving an eARC of this story via NetGalley did not influence my review in any way, shape, or form.