M.E. Purfield

"(R)Evolution" by M.E. Purfield is an action-packed book that's easy to get into. It tells the story of a world where things aren't what they seem and where a group of unlikely heroes must fight against powerful forces.

The story kicks off with a bang as we're introduced to the main characters and the world they live in. There's plenty of excitement right from the start, and it keeps you turning the pages to see what happens next.

Purfield does a great job of creating characters that feel real and relatable. Each character has their own unique personality and backstory, which adds depth to the story.

The pacing of the book is fast, with lots of twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. However, there are moments when the plot feels a bit rushed, and you wish there was more time to explore certain aspects of the story.

Overall, "(R)Evolution" is a thrilling read that will appeal to anyone who enjoys action and adventure. Purfield has created an exciting world filled with intrigue and danger, and it's a ride you won't want to miss.… (mehr)

On the surface, this is one weird book: a very devout Protestant teen and her way-too-religious father live with her open-minded Catholic grandmother. After Patty is beaten up for looking at the wrong boy, she is befriended by Miggy, who is the total opposite of everything Patty has ever been taught is right. But Patty is determined to "save" Miggy from herself and the life she's chosen. Throw in a few more colorful characters and you've got a pretty good book.

Purfield gives us a peek inside Patty's church by taking us there for a Sunday-morning service. I grew up in a charismatic church, so reading the description of Patty's fellow worshipers felt like old-home week to me. To some, it may seem over the top. I'm honestly not sure if the author was going for two extremes in his heroines or if he was trying to show that Patty was too into her "Jesus thing". I think it was the former, because I didn't really feel as if Patty was shown in a bad light. Again, my own background may be coloring my opinion there.

This book just screams, "Love, don't judge!" But not in a way that will make you turn and run away. Throughout the story, Patty learns that you have to look into someone's heart to truly know who they are and that love and friendship can come from unexpected places.

This is a fairly quick read because of the way it's written. It is a story about a group of teens in an inner-city school, so there is a lot of interesting vocabulary, but the story is well-written, and the book has a great message. Read this one, then pass it on to your teen.

About the book
Title: jesus freakz buddha punx
Author: M.E. Purfield
Publisher: Createspace
Release date: May 9, 2011
Pages: 238
Where I got the book: I won this book on Goodreads… (mehr)

Interesting concept but utterly failing in execution, suffering from all the failings of a self-published book. If the author had bothered to employ a decent editor then a lot of the plot could have been saved with a bit of tightening up it might even have been quite good.

The setting is a post climate change dystopia - the antartic ice sheets have melted dumping 10s of m of seawater rise. Apparently in some places people have retreated further inland/uphill, but NewYork built walls to keep the water out (it's not clear if this is completely surrounding the city areas, or whether there is a mainland connection somewhere). This monumental engineering feat was only a prelude as they also built towers and hoisted whole districts up above the water. I'm not sure the author really has an understanding of the timescales involved, but it possibly doesn't matter.

The story focuses (mostly there's a few cutaways to random other characters who don't get any details) on a binman living on top of the towers (small kudos to the author here for realising even in utopia the streets still need cleaning by somebody). It's not clear where the they live as such, as the towers are reserved for the elite, and only criminals are dispatched to whatever life they can manage in the abandoned ground level, still protected by the decaying walls. The relentless polution that caused the ice sheet melting has had another effect. Many (most) babies are now born deformed, often to the same weird shape. These too the city disposes of, down the lower levels. The book then follows the obvious shape - our street cleaner has a deformed baby, his wife dies and he decides to connect to his son by descending the low levels. Where he's utterly unprepared to meet the society he should have expected, but also unprepared to find the society he does meet.

There's several world-building faults, but it all pails into insignificance compared to the error-strewn writing. Most pages have at least one basic error in grammar or typing. Usually missing words or badly formed sentences, the kind of things a pass through a spell-checker would miss, but any decent human reader immediately stumbles upon finding. Any shine that there is, becomes lost in this frequent halts to work out what might have been meant. Avoid.… (mehr)