Review: Wednesday by Dennis Sharpe

SYNOPSIS

When everything in life has been against you, who can blame you for not playing nice with others? 

My name is Wednesday Valentine. For the last seven years I have been abused and used by a sadistic bastard named Klein. Now he wants me dead- only he doesn't have the balls to kill me himself. 

Alvin, who was sent to do Klein's dirty work, decided to save my life (repeatedly) instead of taking it. But no matter how much someone cares about you, they can only do so much...can only go so far. You are your only real shot at coming out on top. 

Sometimes reclaiming your life requires a body count. 

-Wednesday Valentine

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1O3zEbc

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1KEeqNj

EXCERPT

Wednesday stopped and stared after him. She’d been beatenwith electric cords by men who pissed her off less than this guy. She knew that smart money said she should go with him, if for no other reason than to put a warm body with a gun between her and Klein’s hitmen. It was, however, difficult to stifle her reactionary urges to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

She watched as he walked over to the blue ’83 Malibu wagon and unlocked the back. The rear window swung up, making the loud scraping sound of metal on metal in protest, and he lowered the rear gate. He shuffled things over to one side, making room for thecopious amount of necessities his clueless companion had absolutely been unable to travel without.

He turned to look at her, and slowly she moved forward. One foot forced in front of the other, she drug herself up next to him. On top of everything else, she was now in stunned disbelief that he expected her to endure the vehicle parked in front of her. To her, it looked more like a landmark, a statement on the decay of the city, than a means of transportation.

The chrome was peeling off the bumper that appeared to have been warped into a diagram depicting low frequency radio waves. The faded blue paint seemed to smoothly fade away to gray around the windows and wheel wells. There didn’t appear to be any rust, but there also wasn’t a body panel on the vehicle, that she could see, which didn’t boast at least two dents and at least one major scratch. This was worse than anything she could have imagined.

"This is your car?" she asked as her nose crinkled. "Really?"

"What?" Alvin asked, looking from her shocked face to his car and then back to her.

"If I’m going to be walking around with you in that – where did you get that suit anyway? Goodwill? No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know," she said, waving her hand at him as though he were trying to serve her food with bugs in it. Her voice raised an octave when she continued. "If you’re taking me with you, can you at least take me in a car that isn’t... that? Ugh! Make it kidnapping and GTA?"

He ignored her as he threw all of her things, except what she had on her, into the back of the wagon unceremoniously while she looked on in horror. Then he stalked around the car, patting the roof of it reassuringly as he went, opened his door and put his foot in. He looked back over at her before slipping down behind the wheel and out of her line of sight.

"I’m only going to say this once. Shut up and get in the car." His voice was cold and his words came quickly, then he turned the key and the engine roared to life.

"I’m only going to say this once. Shut up and get in the car," she said in a pinched and nasally voice mocking him as she stomped her foot. She screeched without words, opened the car’s passenger side rear door – it dropped down about half an inch and seemed to yell at her as it swung out – threw her Birkin in the backseat, and then slammed the door as hard as she could.

She jerked the front passenger side door open and looked down and in at Alvin who didn’t even acknowledge the fit she was throwing. She was furious, more now than she had been. She was not someone who anyone ignored. Not ever.She dropped herself onto the car’s bench seat like a sack of bricks, then ‘Hmmmmphf"-ed as she threw herself hard back in the seat as though she were a very young child who wasn’t getting her own way.

Alvin tilted his ankle and the accelerator sank. They pulled out of the alley with him completely ignoring her red-faced fuming less than two feet away from him.

*3 STARS*

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

Judging by the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, I'm going to be in the minority apparently, but this book was just alright for me. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. It reminded me a lot of the Transporter 3 movie. You've got an older, nice-looking guy wearing a suit and possessing a set of bad ass ninja skills protecting a younger, bratty girl with no sense of self-preservation, and they are on the run.

 

I couldn't connect with Wednesday's character at all. I understand that she went through hell for many years, but still. She was so immature. She had no regard for anyone's safety, including her own. She threw a temper tantrum if she didn't get her way. I just flat out didn't like her. 

Not being the central focus of the person or persons whom she was with was something Wednesday was completely unaccustomed to dealing with, and she was quite sure by this point that she didn't like it. 

She stomped away without saying a word, breathing heavily, face flushed. It was storming off in a way that would make even the worst of children in their terrible twos pale in comparison. 

Alvin was livid. This was a game for her. She was a child, playing and having fun, while putting their lives at risk, not to mention the lives of others, like this cop.

I don't know. Like I said, I didn't hate it, but this book just wasn't for me. There was mention about the excessive use of curse words but that didn't bother me much. I just had a really hard time getting into the story because I just couldn't connect with Wednesday.