Irene Helenowski's Revised Orders

Title:  Could Use More Reader-Friendly Orders

Irene Helenowski “Revised Orders”

Reviewed by Kelsey Britt                                                               

1/30/2015

10:48am

Revised Orders is the second in a series of “Order” books, and it definitely reads like one. Unlike most books that offer a recap and re-introduction of characters at the beginning this book throws the reader straight into the action. While less boring if you’ve read the series, coming into it as an outsider was made almost impossible by this fact. 

For most of the book, I cannot say that I really had any firm grasp on what was happening.  A lot of this branches off of the lack of relationship development and explanation; I had no idea who anyone was or how they usually interacted with the other characters in the story. Honestly, I barely had a grasp on who the main character was. This would have been an easier concept to grasp if the book had been about anything other than what it is. As a book about parallel universes and the ability to travel between them, the reader is inundated with versions of the same characters that have the same name, but different personalities and statuses. This fact was not helped by the lack of clear indication of what is a flashback for what universe. There are breaks in the text that delineate time has passed, but the same exact indentation is used going to and from flashbacks. It gets supremely confusing, and doesn’t really get any better the further you get into the book.

Overall, the book wasn’t bad. It had some interesting ideas and characters, but most of it was hard to see through all the confusing timelines. I would suggest readers read book l before diving into this read.

**I would give Revised Orders 2 out of 5 stars!

Kelsey Britt