Book Review - Delilah Dusticle by A.J. York

Delilah Dusticle has special powers, she can completely eradicate dust. With her quiver pouch of special dusters Delilah can run up walls and reaches places others just can’t. As a maid in the Fenchurch-Whittington house Delilah’s unusual skills soon lead to her being promoted to Chief Dust Eradicator and Remover. Until one day a broken heart leads to her powers taking an expected turn.

This is the first in a series of touching and funny stories about Delilah Dusticle. Follow her on a journey of self-discovery, friendship and adventure.

 

 

I don’t really know how to write this review.  I was actually thinking about just…not, but I promised the author and my followers that I would post the review.  This was before I read it, though, and realized that it just wasn’t for me.

You may think, looking at my back catalogue of reviews, that I don’t mind being the ruthless reviewer person.  But I do.  Major-label books are one thing – they need honest reviews to balance out the plethora of fangirl ones – but indie books…I always feel a huge twinge of guilt with posting an overall negative review.  Such is the case with Delilah Dusticle.

The actual storyline isn’t bad for a middle-grade short story.  Delilah is a Duster, and she has a…I guess, power?...that allows her to eradicate dust.  But when she has her heart broken, her power reverses and she brings dust everywhere she goes.  But the technical aspects are very poor, and so many words are just used and reused and reused again that I lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes.  This right here is why it is essential for indie authors to have at least one really good, grammatically proficient beta reader/editor to go over the final draft before it’s officially published, because poor grammar can kill a book’s credibility.

Also, so much of the story is told through exposition and info-dumping that it’s no wonder why it was so short; hardly anything was actually written out as it happened.  The ending threw a bunch of morals at us that seemed rather forced, and Delilah’s epiphany was too sudden and abrupt, even for a children’s book.

I wouldn’t call this a bad story, really, but it’s an unpolished one.  There is potential for a truly fantastic children’s tale in these pages, but they need to go through some extensive editing to really deliver on most of it.  There are certainly worse self-published books out there, and the less picky reader may find herself really enjoying Delilah Dusticle, but it’s not a story I can personally recommend.

Delilah Dusticle - 2.5 out of 5 stars