A Review of "The Other Side of Me"

Introduction

Author J.K. Imathiu (known on Goodreads as J Imathiu) contacted me on Twitter towards the end of April and offered me a free ebook copy of The Other Side of Me in exchange for an honest review, and I have to say, it was nice to have a change of pace in my reading selections! I've been trying to do that a bit more with my Novel Subgenre Checklist for the year, but I hadn't yet read a drama until now. The book takes place in Kenya as well, which contributed to the uniqueness of the novel and how it strayed from the usual type of books I read.

My Rating: ★★★

Synopsis: "How well do you know the person you think you know the most? I turned into someone I didn't recognize and I found out I didn't know myself. Before that, I was part of the hustle and bustle of Kenya's capital, Nairobi. I was up at the crack of dawn to get to work to earn a living and make my dreams come true. I walked a straight path and gave my work my all. I expected that over time I would see rewards for my effort and dedication.

Instead, I was cast aside and the anger and frustration set me on a very dark and slippery path. I began to live a very dark life on the other side of the law. There, I found total freedom from laws and rules that had never paid off for me. I'd always been good and straight and kind and it had never done anything for me. It turned out it wasn't freedom I had found though; it was reckless abandon and total disregard for everything that was good and right and proper. It was a life that gave me a thrill but it didn't see me free. Rather, it put me in bondage. It had me in such a tight bind that I believed that the only way out was to take myself out.

This is my story; a story about losing everything including myself and then finding myself in a most unexpected place; somewhere between life and death." (via Goodreads)

Thoughts and Comments

Pros

• I really liked that the novel took place in Kenya. I know very little about the country, or about anywhere in Africa at all, and there were subtle notes involving food and locations that gave the reader a peek into the culture of Kenya.
• The author includes the characters speaking in Swahili, one of the two main languages of Kenya (the other being English). This was really cool to see, especially written out in a dialogue that I found to be consistently natural and convincing.
• The descriptions of the scenes that held high levels of emotion were written thoroughly.
• The pacing is set comfortably. I never felt that things were moving too slowly or too quickly at any point in the novel.
• The multiple flashback scenes are executed well and work with the dramatic style of the novel.
• The story was told starting with the ending and working its way to the beginning, and the reader finds out how the beginning events came to be the more they read through the book. I think that the author was very smart to implement the storytelling this way.
• The ending was both happy and sad, which I appreciated, because it left the reader to decide what ultimately happened between the main characters Mo and Lyn.

Cons

• The syntax is often written in fragments, which leads me to an overall point: this novel would probably have gained a fourth star if it went through a substantial editing process. The plot was great and the story kept me intrigued throughout the novel, but the reason that this novel earned three stars instead of four is because the grammar issues were great enough to be distracting.
• Though I loved the Swahili in the dialogue, the author writes the Swahili first and then puts the English translation in parentheses after it, like so: "Question in Swahili (English translation)?" I thought that this could have been done in a way that wasn't so clunky and allowed the reader to go through the dialogue a bit more smoothly.
• Although nothing went by too quickly, I did find that almost everything went by too easily. The main character, Lyn, always gets everything done perfectly on the first try, and without having to wait very long, which was unrealistic and, frankly, a bit annoying, especially when it comes to the process of robbing a high-security bank vault.
• It's confusing at times to figure out the narration style. It varies from being third person omnipotent to a close, limited third person to first person without any warning or signifying of a change within the chapter.
• There are images throughout the novel which I suspect to be free to use under the Creative Commons 0 license or something similar. I found these images to be tacky and unnecessary, as the images used are already well-described in the scene.

Conclusion

If you like dramas, I would recommend this book as a quick and easy read! It's a short novel--I was able to get through it in about two hours--so it would be perfect for a plane ride or a beach read. I enjoyed it, and I'm pleased that the author suggested I review it. J.K. Imathiu, thank you for the opportunity to share in your adventure! I look forward to seeing more from you in the future!

Amazon Link: See here

Goodreads Link: See here

Riffle Link: See here

This fulfills the "Autobiography" subgenre of the Miscellaneous genre!

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