Review: Chasing the Lion

Chasing the Lion by Anthony J. Tata
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book. It seemed like my type of action-packed thriller. However, I basically had to force myself into read the book and bring it to completion. I wanted to give up around the 25% mark, but persevered since I had to review it for NetGalley.

The sole positive I could find was the final few chapters. There was finally some payoff and real action. However, by that point I just didn’t care anymore and was skimming it very heavily.

Onwards to the negatives. As many other reviewers have stated, the plot is convoluted and poorly described. I still don’t understand what the “virus” did, or how it worked. It’s also strange that a general would find themselves in so many active engagements.

The writing itself leaves a lot to be desired. If I have to read “As I was doing this, the bad guy was doing that” one more time, it will be too soon. It was quite literally used every time in the opening sentence when there was a chapter from the villain’s POV. Additionally, it took way too long to get to any sort of point and there was a ton of back story that was randomly woven in throughout the first third of the book.

Basically, I hated this book. I even downgraded it from 2 stars to 1 star as I was writing this. I simply did not care about the characters or feel invested in anything. It usually takes me about 3 days to get through an action thriller and this took me almost two weeks of torture. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

As always, this is my opinion and your mileage may vary. ARC given through NetGalley and my thoughts are clearly my own.

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