Warrior Girl by Janice Wee Tien Yong is a three part series self published through lulu.com. The books are only about 100 pages each and with only three, one might expect the author could just have made one novel length book out of them.
Inevitably, I'm going to end up sounding like Simon Cowell during the first round of American Idol auditions when reviewing this book series. I can only say that reading Warrior Girl and the counterparts, Lost in Another Realm and The Dark Warriors reminded me of the feeling I had when watching "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" for the first time, complete with a theatre full of carefully cued hecklers...What in the world is this?!
- First, the books are action packed, however the action has no discernable point to it. In fact I found no good explanation of where it was happening or why. Starting the series was like being dropped into the middle of an H.P. Lovecraft-esque acid trip...protagonist chased by endless baddies and everywhere she stops for a rest, a bat or spider or centipede morphs into some ghoulish human mutant to continue the chase, but I still never got what the point was supposed to be. Action for the sake of blind action doesn't make for gripping writing, folks.
- Secondly, the books are full of descriptive prose. In fact every little action is overly described or compared and in sometimes very weird ways...Example: "With the suddenness of acid reflux, lightning flashed across the heavens. The sky groaned with thunder. With impeccable timing, the clouds vomited like a child with stomach flu." Hmmm...uhm, okay...
- The front cover art isn't too bad and somebody obviously went to some work on them, but the interior of the books is way out of whack...normally the text is single spaced with more space between POV changes. These books have double spaces between nearly every sentence. Now when you get into book form this looks very strange, with half of the page space ending up empty.
- The "Love Story" aspect of this is forced at best...Example: "This gorgeous hunk saved her life. He exuded raw charisma. her cheeks reddened as he spoke, though she tried to hide her reaction from him. He talked animatedly about a world so different from the one she knew. I'm in love. Her heart frolicked as she gazed at him." --yep, it must be love...she just found out his name at this point. There's also several annoying references to this character as "The Flying Hunk," before we eventually get his name...do people still say, "Hunk?"
Now, honestly I don't like to seem so cynical about a book or series, but I just can't seem to find a way around it with Warrior Girl. The books read like tributes to every bad "B" movie you've ever seen. And while Dr. Frankenfurter and his Rocky Horror Show cronies have gone on to be underground hits with everyone who enjoys heckling a badly made, silly movie...the sad truth is that authors won't be received that way with such work.
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