BOOK REVIEW: Shades of Green by Ian Woodhead

One day Holburn is the average small English town, and the next it is transformed into a Hell with killer plants, monstrous spiders, demons and other horrors. Survivors Damian, his girlfriend, Jen, his brother, Alan, Jen's uncle, Pete, his friend, Dave, an old man, Arthur, and a hobo, Ernest, struggle to escape the town and attempt to figure out what is happening.

Shades of Green has an interesting, but convoluted, concept. At the beginning, the reader is placed in the middle of the action and it takes awhile to get into the book because you have no idea what is going on. There are also several dream sequences which make you question whether what you're reading is real, or just another dream. I was unsure of what was happening throughout the book and I still don't fully understand because the resolution was confusing as well.

The typos don't help to understand the plot either. The book is full of major errors, which change the meaning of sentences. I had to re-read some sentences several times and guess at what word Woodhead actually meant to use. For example, in the first chapter the names of the two brothers are reversed. Damian is described as the older brother who has a fear of germs and Alan is the younger brother who is dating Jennifer. Then in Chapter 2, they are the opposite. It was incredibly confusing and I didn't know which was the mistake.

The characters aren't developed well and are basically just names on a page. I constantly confused Arthur, Dave and Pete because they were all referred to as "old men" and didn't have many other discerning qualities.

But Woodhead writes great descriptions of the disturbing scenery in Holburn, making it easy to picture the ruined town and also creates some very gruesome images.

Shades of Green would be a decent novel if it was edited better. If you don't mind typos, you can buy it for only 99 cents on Amazon. But I would recommend skipping this one.

Rating: 2/5