by Perie Wolford
rating: ☆
published: 23rd February 2014
spoilers? yes
Goodreads
Encounter is written as a series of video clips (or, descriptions of video clips), documenting the process of a group of friends as they try to prove to people that crop circles are a wholly human phenomenon. From the synopsis, it sounded really promising and, since I marked it as to-read about 9 months ago, I've been trying to get hold of it. I mean, it's aliens plus LGBT+ characters. What can go wrong?
A lot, as it turns out.
First of all, the writing was bad. Like, honest-to-God bad. Maybe it's just me, because if you scroll through the first few reviews of this book, it's been given 4 and 5 star ratings. The average rating is more than 4 as well (though this isn't that surprising given that it's only got ~100 reviews, so it won't take much to change the average rating, but I'm rambling). Back to the point, I was not impressed. The plot was kind of everywhere. We're introduced to the characters apparently in the middle of their venture, and when Emily, a new member of their group, arrives. Now, I wouldn't mind the story starting in the middle if there was some background on what's been going on before, but as far as I can tell, the style of the book (as essentially descriptions of a bunch of video diaries) was chosen for the express purpose of being able to avoid having to go through all that. Again, that would be fine if it kept to that, but every now and then it would jump into what characters were feeling and that's where the line between video diaries and third person from the characters' points of view becomes a bit blurred. Choose one or the other, please.
So, no context, but what about the rest of the story? Well.
Ricky (aka the ringleader and the brains behind the operation) is the one designing these crop circles which the group then goes and cuts into a field, while Josh films everything. First off, they cut a small one into a field, but it doesn't even make the local news so Ricky decides they gotta go BIGGER AND BETTER!! and designs another one. This time it makes the national news (halle-fucking-lujah), but wait! That's not the field they cut the crop circle into? That's a completely different field in a completely different state! (Cue angry shouting and uncalled for accusations of leaking the design, all aimed at Josh, because apparently he wants to sabotage Ricky. God knows where that plot point came from.) So then they decide to take a road trip to the crop circle (having, of course, decided that Josh is in fact innocent of any crimes they were blaming him of).
At this point, they find out Emily is actually a secret government agent (because, why not?) and she had an ~alien encounter~ when she was a kid, and now she's slightly obsessed. Just a bit. (God knows how she found out about the group though. You'd have thought that, if you're doing illegal shit like trespassing and cutting crop circles, you wouldn't want to be found. Unless Josh decided to upload all the videos onto the internet. Damnit, Josh! We trusted you!) So obviously, Emily's (totally legit) first reaction is to arrest Ricky and Josh and drive them somewhere with a bunch of other agents. (This is where Josh and Ricky confess they love each other. Which, to be fair, was clearly coming. In this at least, the author made sure it had been mentioned beforehand.) Turns out, aliens are real and Ricky can (unknowingly) write in the alien language!! And Emily can read it!!
Then their prison van (what else am I supposed to call it? They got arrested) is overturned on the road and Josh and Ricky are free! But as they're running through the fields, there's this bright light and they have an ~alien encounter~ (and become Beliebers*). Then they hike back to the closest city, ignoring the fact that they left Emily and the other agents in a bloody wreckage. Way to go, boys.
The end is pretty confusing. I don't even remember what happened, but it was confusing. I think they got kidnapped by the aliens but God knows.
Also, there was this random plot point where Josh, thinking that Ricky was interested in Emily, had sex with her in an attempt to put Ricky off her because he liked Ricky. Yeah, me too.
Okay. Rant (90%) over.
Let's talk characters. There are five of them: Ricky, Josh, Emily, Het #1 and Het #2. (They're not really called Het #1 and Het #2, but I've forgotten their names and basically all I can remember of them is that they spend 80% of the time they were there being Heterosexual. The other 20% was when they were screaming at Josh for apparently leaking the designs.) I was going to try start of with something positive but I can't think of anything. They're boring characters, if I'm honest. Josh is an arsehole(TM) and is always irritating Ricky (God knows why Ricky likes him), and the only time I sympathised with him at all was when he was being accused of something he didn't do. Ricky had a stick up his arse (not Josh's though) and that didn't really change throughout the book. Emily seemed okay to begin with but then once her true identity was revealed, seemed a little obsessed with the aliens. Like, okaaaaaaaay. Het #1 and Het #2 were just that. Hets (yawn).
In case you couldn't tell, I got pretty pissed off reading this (and quite sarcastic reviewing it. I'm sorry). But, on the bright side, I only wasted an hour of my time with it.
*Yes, I know. I'm being sarky.
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