Only You by Benjamin Daniels

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This was a most curious book.  I've never read anything quite like it before.  The narrator is the book itself, and it's addressing you, the reader.  This means, of course, that the entire book is written in second person... which is a very difficult thing to do.  I've never known any other author to attempt this kind of writing experiment, and succeed.

I'm not quite sure Mr. Daniels succeeds, but he comes close.  The story is an interesting love letter from the book to the reader, and I think the premise is a good one, just not quite as well done as I would have liked.  The narrative was extremely redundant, and often, thoughts go unfinished.  I think the author was trying to convey the missing element of engagement when a reader puts down a book and comes back to it later... which makes sense... but I think it could have been done with fewer redundancy and holes.  I'm not sure of the origin of the author, but in several passages, it seemed as if English was not the writer's first language.  The book seemed loosely edited.  I'm not sure if that was intentional, but it did make the book a bit choppy to read.

I think, though, that it's a brave experiment; one that, honestly, I'm not ready to take on.  And yet, I'm shelving this concept for later.  Reading this book did give me some ideas about how I might craft a novel in second person.  Perhaps some day.   Certainly, Drake is noodling this around as a future project.

This wasn't an exceptional book, but it was an intriguing read; and as an author, an interesting approach to craft.

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