Obedience by Will Lavender

Obedience by Will Lavender

I saw this book at Target almost two years ago, and the back cover description was so intriguing:  A Logic and Reasoning college class receives a semester-long assignment to find a fictional missing person named Polly.  The professor emails clues to them after every class.  If they do not solve it by the end of term, Polly will be murdered.  Clues in real life start to pop up, connecting their hypothetical case to an actual open case of a missing person in a nearby town.  The students start wondering if this assignment really is hypothetical, or if they are getting involved in something that could really mean life or death.

I didn’t buy the book.  I talked myself out of it because I had a reading list of at least 50 books at that time.  I kept thinking about it, though.  What a brilliant idea for a thriller novel.  I looked it up on Amazon, and noticed that the customer reviews were not that great.  At that time, the average rating was only 2 ½ out of 5 stars.  Because of the bad reviews, I looked for it at the local libraries.  None of them had it.  Oh well, I thought.  I put it on my Amazon wish list, just incase I ever needed to add an item to qualify for free shipping.  It never came to that, though.

At last, it turned up suddenly at the State College library!  Hooray!  I checked it out and read it in a day.  Finally, I knew why the Amazon reviews were so bad.  Great idea, poor execution.  Poorly written (and supposedly the author teaches writing at a university – gasp!).  Unlikeable characters.  Awful, inconsistent dialogue.  Contrived coincidences were the only things that moved the story along.  And the ending was a complete cop-out.  There were so many loose ends, and the author never tied them up at the conclusion.  I’m guessing it’s because they had no actual relevance, given the way the story ended.  What a disappointment.

I won’t tell you what happened, because who knows?  Maybe you’re intrigued too.  If nothing else, this book is a great example of what a writer should NOT do.  I’m glad I read it, and I’m happy it’s finally off my reading list.  It’s actually entertaining to read because of how bad it is.  So go for it, if you’re so inclined.  But please, for the love of God, don’t spend any money on it.  Check it out of the library.