Friend Request Review

The Friend Request
By Alex Ford

Welcome to another edition of Spineless Book Reviews, my reviews of books available on Kindle (and usually free).

I've had a few books going at once (just couldn't get fully into any of them) but I finally finished this one. The Friend Request is about a man in England (Ford is British) who accidentally accepts a friend request from someone he shouldn't. The premise of this book is that we give out a lot of information on Facebook to all of our 500 friends. How well do you know all 500? Kids from high school, old coworkers, your roommate's friends boyfriend... My Facebook page alone will tell you my favorite bands, where I went to school, where I work, who I'm dating, family members, and probably my hourly mood. Ford has based this whole book around the information that can be gained from Facebook pages and what a less than scrupulous person would do with that information.

The premise is good, and Ford literally trips over a good line here and there. The problem is that too much of the story is over-analyzed and underdeveloped. Convenient amnesia and a kid with mommy issues does not a novel make. The characters were not well developed, but I did appreciate that equal time was given to both the antagonist and protagonist. Some parts were entertaining and I could loose myself in the plot. At other points I found myself wadding knee deep through irrelevant scenes which would discourage me from attempting the read for days. Inconsistency is difficult in a novel. Interesting at points, but not worth the time. Someday someone will make the premise into an awesome movie.