Morpheus Road by D. J. Machale: Well . . . that was disappointing

Morpheus Road

by 

D. J. Machale

Guys I don’t think this book makes any sense. There was ghosts, but also Greek mythology (I think), and it was a . . . murder/missing person mystery? (I mean everybody except for our ‘brave’ hero thinks it’s a murder but he doesn’t because reasons) 

For some reason these things just did not work well together. I don’t know why because listing them out they seem like they would. They just . . . didn’t. I don’t know if it was the actual plot was the problem or if I just really disliked the characters. There was three of them really though I guess you could kind of say four . . .

               

 Marshall: this poor boy has a supremely unfortunate name (sorry in advance to any Marshalls). He was an utter moron. He kept talking about how he liked ghosts stories and horror movies and stuff but he kept doing all the stupid junk that got those people dead!! Dude I question your logic to the extreme.  

I mean he is left at home alone and he hears a dude walking around his house, instead of I don’t know calling the police, He decides to wander around with turning lights on and off like an idiot. His flawless reasoning is that in reality it’s never the scary criminal/boogeyman. 

Man what are you on! So yeah 70% of the book was me squinting angrily at Marshalls questionable life choices.

               

  Cooper: Marshall’s BFF who of course opens up the book by completely turning on him. I wasn’t any more of a fan of Cooper than I was of Marshall honestly. He was a bit of a jerk and kind of senselessly idiotic. Also guys come on you aren’t allowed to be a womanizer until you’re at least eighteen okay. It’s creepy enough without the added weirdo factor of being a fifteen year old.

Sydney: Cooper’s super smart, hardworking sister who is always perfect and has a bajillion boyfriends. And the love interest all of a sudden?? 

why

Can we please stop with this stereotype guys. I don’t think I could count the number of ‘oh my older sibling is so much more hard working than I am so I’ll be a bad boy/girl’ kind of relationships. Its cheap and overdone alright? Alright. 

Anyway Machale obviously didn’t do his research on Valedictorian girls because I can assure you that they do not wear short shorts, crop tops, or mindlessly date idiots. They usually have neither the time nor the patience.

               Things I liked

The technical fourth character: Gravedigger was one of the reasons I picked up this book. The premise is that Marshall draws this dude, Gravedigger, obsessively and it seems to come alive and start to haunt him. Which was cool and all but it ended up falling a bit flat for me. 

I’ll explain that in my dislikes though.

The main character was an artist: I love characters that are artists or writers or musicians anything really. The creativity and how it’s always a little more than a hobby even though the characters refuse to admit it. It’s just fun to me.

Things I didn’t like

The two boys’ attitudes: Both of them were around fifteen I think and of course they talked about girls but it was in a mildly insulting way.

 I don’t know if this is how teenage boys refer to girls (I kind of have to assume it’s the norm because I’ve read it several time) but it was always about their legs or butt or etc. Or about how smoking hot they were when they were practically naked in bikinis. Frankly as a girl I was pretty uncomfortable.  

AND

Say it with me fellas: the romance!! Didn’t see that coming at all. Sorry Y’all but it was just all kinds of bad. Not only were they both obnoxious Sydney was degrading about literally everything Marshall did while he thought of nothing except her gorgeous looks and apparently hypnotizing legs. 

Seriously it was a bit extreme near the end.

Gravedigger was so anticlimactic: and kind of unexplained as well. I mean I was preparing for some psychological thing explaining why a drawing came to life? Buuuuuuuut no.

 Spoiler warning here but basically the big bad dude turned out to be this guy called Damon who created Gravedigger to haunt him. 

Why though?

Like this guy could make anything, literally anything and he chose a sketch? What would have happened if Marshall had obsessively sketched a winged kitten huh? What then? 

I just didn’t get it and while I’m spoiling everything I might as well mention Damon as well.

Damon: This guy showed out of the blue in the last twenty-thirty pages in a ridiculous ‘ha-ha it was actually me all along’ spoof while I sat there and wondered ‘that’s nice and all but who are you?’.

So my verdict