Review: List of 13 by E.A. Comiskey

Book Review

I was sent this book for an honest review by the author. All thoughts and opinions are my own and are not influenced in any way by receiving this book.

List of 13 by E.A. Comiskey
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Synopsis
Death sucks, but there’s good beer in Purgatory.

Alice and her adult daughter, Claire, created a “bucket list” of thirteen experiences they would seek out before Alice died from cancer. They never expected to die in a plane crash attempting to cross off number three. Now, mother and daughter are stuck in the underworld, unable to move on to their ultimate destiny until they finish the list, but finding an Irish Pub near the Fields of Asphodel, or swimming naked in the ocean while being pursued by bloodthirsty Aztecs and a smitten Egyptian god is as hard as it sounds. When everything they ever thought they knew is challenged, will faith be enough to carry them through?

A LIST OF 13 moves between the time after Alice’s death and the time before, allowing the reader to explore the way her relationships evolve and intertwine throughout her life and beyond.

What I thought
I received this book from the author for an honest review. This story is told from two perspectives from Alice, before her death and in her journey through the underworld. When Alice finds out she is dying she makes a bucket list of 13 items with her daughter Claire. Since they did not finish the bucket list in life they now need to finish it in death before they can reach Heaven. I really don’t see this as being a spoiler since this was too easy to figure out they needed to finish the list from the beginning. Some of the ways that they came across to accomplish these items on their list was a little far-fetched and I may have rolled my eyes, but I was there for the ride. It really was not bad but not what I was hoping for. Still, I would have read on if we would have only followed them. Occasionally the story flips to Rory Alice’s deceased (10 years) husband. He is living outside the gates of heaven in a village… not Purgatory. Yes, I know that is what most of you may be thinking. Anyway, he is there because he won’t go through the gates without Alice. So as you can imagine some sections are very religious. So do know this before you go into it. I know some people are really turned off by this.

While reading the parts from Rory’s perspective I became very frustrated. Rory is the most possessive character I have run across in a book in a while and it drove me crazy every time he referred to Alice or Clair they were his “my woman” “my girls” ‘my Alice” I get how this may come across to some people as his caring but it is way overdone and it was in one of his sections (page 137 of 233) that I realized I couldn’t do this anymore. Those sections made me so frustrated and I dreaded having to finish the book. I finally just decided that I have too many other things to read and I have been battling this book for over a week. After reading Rory’s first section I did not pick it back up for three days. So I realized that that would probably happen again and honestly doing that to myself is not fair to me.

If anyone has finished this I would like to hear what they think because I did not have any issues with the other characters. Let’s talk in the comments below.

I was sent this book for an honest review by the author. All thoughts and opinions are my own and are not influenced in any way by receiving this book.

My Rating: /5 2 stars