April 1st, 2019 - The Match

Dear TNY,

I could not finish “The Match” and out of respect for those that have attempted to, I’ll be brief in my assessment.

This should have been either a novel or the author should have just had one or two fucking scenes that put us in the story.  Either way, all the summary needed to be drawn out.  I’ve never read a story that had all the ingredients to be good, but could not do it.  I couldn’t get past all the politics of how the school worked and each character’s past and criminal offenses and the boxing breakdowns and blah blah fucking blah Jesus Christ this never got to the fucking point.  It’s not even an agenda story because it never got out of the fucking station.

Oh, the descriptions should have been good.  The author has skill.  Grab one or two of these sentences in isolation and they are objectively well written.  But when you have all of them strung together, the creative mouth-feel of that many chewy sentences in a row that do not move the story forward becomes tedium.  I found myself annoyed and saying, “Yeah, yeah, I see you can write, but can you tell a fucking story?” 

Spoiler alert:  Nope.

Until next time,

Nick