Negative Positive
Title: Sprinting Through Nostalgia
Review: The Forgotten Promise by Ilmars Birznieks is a sprint through nostalgia. Birznieks attempts to quicken the book's pace by jetting characters from the US to Germany to Austria. Yet, the disjuncted underlying theme of the book is the portrayal of pre-World War Latvia, an independent Baltic State several hundred miles to the north of Germany, as a utopia.While the book is rife with blemishes, there are two major flaws: (1.) the characters are flat and uninteresting and (2.) the premise for the book seems artificial. There is no compelling reason to side with the protagonist, Larry Walters, other than one's disdain for the antagonist, Jill Walters. And, there is little connection between the characters and their fondness of Latvia.This book seems more like a string of malformed ideas for short stories than a cohesive novel. This is one you can leave on the shelf.
Is the review positive or negative? 