Countdown, act or die

Countdown by Michelle Maddox
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that has so much potential...it just needs a lot more editing to get there. Kira and Rogan wake up next to each other and find out they're fighting for their lives, and they have a time limit to do it in. Almost reminded me of Saw in some aspects, only not quite as gruesome. It was an exciting beginning, and gave me high hopes for the book. But then...the book felt rushed, with characters and places not fully fleshed out. I only ever had the vaguest sense of what things looked like, and the actual countdown never seemed to really match up with how long it should actually take to do something. And the games weren't that exciting, at least the early ones. Considering the whole premise of why they're in Countdown, I kept expecting more. Everything also felt like a rush to get to "the sex scene," and then that scene turned out to be horribly awkward. Yes, we the readers know Rogan's meant to be the love interest, but that doesn't mean we want the love to happen that quickly.

The second part of the book, "after countdown," as I label it in my head, has them confronting the bad guy and making everything better. Again, it all happens fairly quickly, and I found myself struggling with some of the explanations. It was good enough, but...I had to suspend a lot of disbelief, and use a lot of imagination to fill in gaps left by the author.

I still gave it three stars though because it is an interesting story idea, and it was a fast-paced read. I just wish it was more detailed and thought-out than it seemed.

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