Short stories are meant to entertain us during our lazy summer afternoons when we don’t want to get caught up in television shows or go running outside because it is way too hot. These stories are also meant to feel breezy because who wants to feel like their reading as a choir or homework assignment during a well deserved summer break. Unfortunately, “King of the Forgotten Clubs” by Jennifer Recchio has a lot of potential but falls short when it comes to her plots, conflicts, and transitions throughout her scenes.
First off, there were too many characters introduced at once and the relationship between these friends and or lovers or ex-girlfriends weren’t clarified until the end of the novel. I was annoyed because each individual character had certain spunk about them and charm, and I had hoped that I could have seen more about them throughout the story but my waiting was useless. The characters were left two-dimensional with no character development or intriguing moments where their personalities really shined.
The stressful part about finishing this story was trying to keep all the scattered information about everybody including the many conflicts that were somehow related in check. The novel was a bit unorganized and even though it was an interesting story I could not keep up with everything going on all at once. I felt like I had skipped a few vital chapters as I was reading along.
It is hard to judge a short novel, but this story goes from a boy named Pak who seems to be in love with Annabelle. A girl whom he has just broken up with but shortly after he kind of falls for another mysterious girl who seems to be friends with the wrong people. Pak tries to save this damsel in distress but in order to do so he is asking for help from Annabelle and another ex-girlfriend who seems to be Annabelle’s best friend. By the end of the book you can’t figure out who the bad guys are and who the good guys are but not because the novel was written so brilliantly.
I do not like to criticize books, and I must admit this short story had a lot of potential but I think it tried to kill too many birds with one stone. With everything that happened in this story it should have either been a longer novel or some of the scenes were better left cut out or shortened. This story definitely needs some more legroom to grow to its full potential of awesome.
Rating: 2/10
Source: Netgalley
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