{"id":9016,"date":"2021-12-15T22:45:08","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T02:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=9016"},"modified":"2021-12-15T22:45:08","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T02:45:08","slug":"book-review-the-condemned-by-jesse-rosenbaum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-the-condemned-by-jesse-rosenbaum\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Condemned by Jesse Rosenbaum"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Condemned <\/em>by Jesse Rosenbaum<\/p>\n

Fulton Books, 2021<\/p>\n

ISBN: 9781649523228<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition\u00a0\u00a0(\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a>\u00a0 )<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Condemned <\/em>is an entertaining, although occasionally predictable debut novel from Jesse Rosenbaum.\u00a0 It’s a decent story and worth reading, although it could have used one more edit to correct the grammatical mistakes that pop up from time to time.<\/p>\n

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The story itself is fun, and puts a few new ideas into the “ordinary guy dealing with angels and demons” plotline.\u00a0 Michael is your everyday college student who has the misfortune to be visited by Orrix, one of Lucifer’s former high level demon flunkies.\u00a0 Orrix was banished to Purgatory for insubordination, and he wants to return to Hell to give Lucifer a beating and take over his job.\u00a0 Orrix gives Michael a choice: help him find an ancient book that will allow him to return to Hell, or Orrix will make Michael’s life miserable.\u00a0 Not really having a choice, Michael and his friend Tom search for the book so they can get Orrix out of their lives and return to normal.<\/p>\n

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The plotline is solid, and it’s a nice change from the usual good vs. evil.\u00a0 Instead, it’s “good mixed up with evil” vs. evil, as Lucifer does play a role in the book, and neither he nor Orrix are shining paragons of virtue.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s quite fun, with both Lucifer and Orrix making their case for why each should win, since both of them are pathological liars.\u00a0 The author shows good creativity with the descriptions of the afterlife, and there’s some good imagery.\u00a0 The upside-down trees growing from the bottom of precipices (complete with bodies hanged from them) are a good example.\u00a0 The dialogue between the characters fits in nicely and fills in the plot, keeping the story moving at a brisk pace.\u00a0 For generating reader interest, Orrix and Lucifer steal the show.\u00a0 Poor Michael seems a bit hapless and somewhat puppet-like, since he really isn’t given much choice in\u2026 anything, really.\u00a0 He’s a likable character, but he should have been given a little more free will: his lack of control over his destiny makes him somewhat one-dimensional.<\/p>\n

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All the good points make for a perfectly good story, but the way the dialogue is written could have used a bit more spit and polish.\u00a0 It is written in more of a script form, as opposed to a story form.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s just dialogue, with no indication of who the speaker is.\u00a0 It never gets confusing as to who said what, but the style detracts from the emotion of what the characters say.\u00a0 Of course, it could be a stylistic choice by the author, although it’s one not seen very often in fiction.<\/p>\n

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Overall, it’s a likable first effort from a new author.<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Condemned by Jesse Rosenbaum Fulton Books, 2021 ISBN: 9781649523228 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition\u00a0\u00a0(\u00a0Bookshop.org\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Amazon.com\u00a0 )   The Condemned is an entertaining, although occasionally predictable debut novel from Jesse Rosenbaum.\u00a0 It’s a decent story and worth reading, although it could have used one more edit to correct the grammatical mistakes that pop up from time<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2595,83,5063,2912,5062],"class_list":["post-9016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-demons","tag-horror-fiction","tag-jesse-rosenbaum","tag-occult-horror","tag-the-condemned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9016"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9019,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016\/revisions\/9019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}