Disappointed

I guess I'm making assumptions about the author because I went to school with a military guy who thought he was the best thing to happen to creative storytelling and wouldn't take corrective criticism from anyone, and thus we were subjected to months of his poorly written manuscript. Reading this gave me flash backs to that guy. The writing is unhoned and clunky. The dialog is written like (I imagine) a military campaign field report (even the civilians talk like little military officers giving reports). Repetition is rampant. Everything from epic battle sequences to the abduction of a child is flat and emotionless. Could the book have been saved by a few good rounds of professional editing? Absolutely! The fact that it's self published doesn't surprise me, and here's where I start to form assumptions about the author bases on my experience with the other guy I knew from school: this is why I picture this author as an arrogant military type strutting around thinking he's the best, most talented writer in the world, asking his buddies and his parents to read his manuscript and "edit" it for him, and then thinking, "Why do I need to pay for a professional editor when my friends and family can do it for free?" Because, you end up with yet another poorly written story and annoyed readers who really want their credits back.
Could it have been saved by a better narrator? We'll never know, but this narrator certainly didn't help. He sounds like Google is reading an appliance manual.
I'm annoyed because this is an important issue that needs to be addressed and needs to be brought to light, and this book just left so much to be desired. At times, it felt like the author was exploiting these boys as much as their captors. The only reason they go looking for the Bacha Bazi boys in the first place is because they think all these Talibam bigwigs will be hiding out wherever the boys are being held (an accurate assumption, true). I don’t know, maybe this was the only way to get the military to sign off on a rescue mission, but it fell flat for me.

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