"The Becoming" by Jeanne C. Stein

Here's another of those books I've been putting off forever, only to find I should have left it on the shelf. The Becoming was summarily unappealing. The biggest shortcoming was the flatness of characters. Some lacked that spark which makes characters interesting; some were downright unlikable. I think it was the author's failure to create compelling characters that produced such a lack of urgency, as with poor acting in low-budget films. And so I was bored and didn't care what happened in the book. Sadly, this book commits a few other sins. I mentioned the unlikable characters -- chief among these were the main protagonist and her male counterpart/villain. (That was a bit of a spoiler... oops.) Anna Strong, in an attempt to come off as a tough girl, is simply shallow and irritating. There's a love triangle that makes all involved seem like wastes of time. And -- most irksome of all -- a majority of the dialogue takes place through italicized telepathy, which became old after just a few pages. I would call this book a complete flop because I was more bored after half-reading it than I was before.