E Becker

read the whole book, hoping it would get better. I was looking for some insight, some point where Lucy would become an interesting character I could root for. I didn't find it. And the writing was so random, skipping all over mentioning so many people, but no content. The entire book felt so superficial - never scratching the surface of what had obviously been a traumatic upbringing.

I read every David Baldacci book as soon as I can and always enjoy getting immersed in the storyline. Until this one. About 50 pages in I found myself researching to see if someone else had "co-written" it with him. It just did not flow the way his books do. Too many characters, too much detail about unimportant things...just a dull book for the most part. I made myself finish it but honestly the last 150 pages or so I was skimming at times just to get through it.

I have read every Reacher book and am a big fan. This latest one, Better Off Dead, was really dull unfortunately. Never found myself interested in the characters or storyline, and also found myself wondering by the end of the book, "what percentage of the words in this story are just filler, unnecessarily long descriptions of everything?" Scenery and places that aren't relevant take up pages, and also Reacher's physical altercations go on and on. I get that these encounters are a part of the stories and of Reacher's character and I generally enjoy them...but this book relied on and regurgitated them too much and just caused me to skim paragraphs and full pages over and over. Will not waste my time reading any more written by Andrew. P.S. Writing Reacher in first person: horrible!