"Warriors of the Cross" by T.R. Graves

Though I did begin reading this book with excitement, I wasn't very thrilled by it.

I'd like to begin by saying that it was unnecessarily long. 433 pages were just too much to endure. I did bail in the last couple of chapters, and don't really regret it. Even the action that was squeezed in them wasn't good enough to make me reconsider.

Some scenes seemed to be prolonged outside of the ordinary, and got kind of boring. Some scenes repeated several times with no real reason. At times the action didn't seem to stall and just hang in limbo. The conversations didn't sound real, and at times I couldn't imagine the characters saying their lines.

There was too much internal dialogue, too much telling and too little showing. The descriptions overwhelmed me at times, making it hard for me to follow them.

I noticed several inconsistencies, and more than a handful grammatical errors that bothered me.

The male characters felt so unnatural, it was hard to picture them the way the author portrayed them. They were all good boys completely devoted to Allie (the female protagonist). They didn't see her flaws or weaknesses, they just worshiped her unquestionably. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no guy acts like that. Or perhaps out of everyone one guy could be mushy like that, but all the guys in the book?? Even the bad guy?? I don't think so. They were acting like acolytes at best, following Allie's every desire. Sure, she wasn't selfish, but still...

Those 3 stars are there only because the story itself was good. I liked the ideas behind all the writing, and I liked the Christian twist in it. But even the couple of times when we heard God's voice, the words sounded like someone was dictating them. Too dry and weird to be spoken by God.

I don't know if I would recommend this book to anyone. I just barely endured it myself.