The Night Watchman by J. L. Manning

Synopsis:

This story takes place in any city where there is street crime, street racing, and underground fighting. There is a young man that was in a car accident as a child and was left with physical limitations. Over these years a speech impairment and self-doubt because of how people now saw him left him lonely. A technology that he found did help him gain abilities that he never had and he wanted to use these abilities to help out his city. The abilities that he gained improved and the side effects gave him abilities that he was learning to take advantage of. He started to investigate a criminal that he had found that got him involved in some tight spots. He gained the most unlikely of friends that got him involved with underground activities. His confidence grew, but when the time comes will he do the right thing?

Review:

I liked the synopsis of this book, it's kind of a cool idea. So many things can happen to you in life, so it's really cool to read about a character who took a tragedy and overcame it. I like that not only was he able to overcome it to make his own life better, but that he would want to try and make other people's lives better. 

Most of the time my problems with books are that they move to slow, but I really didn't have this problem when I was reading this book. My actual issue with this book had to do with moving to quick. For me a book is like a journey, you travel from point A to point B, and along the way you have bumps in the road, and hopefully a fun ride with great scenery. But for this book it felt like the author needed to move the book forward and didn't know how to do it, so they skipped some character development for John. I felt like if I had been along the ride for more of the journey with John then I would have been more invested in him as a character, and maybe would have enjoyed him a little bit more. 

Another thing that I got from this book is that I feel like it's more of a guy book. Now I hate to say this, because I think books can work for both men and women depending on the person's interests. But for me I felt like this book didn't really work for me, for example the car elements/fighting had more a feel that I think a man would enjoy. I know I can think of a lot of my guy friends who might enjoy this book more than I did. 

That being said I did enjoy some elements of the book, such as I enjoyed the different people that John met along the way. And once I got over missing out on some of his character development I did like seeing him evolve as a character through the book. 

I am going to give this book a "so-so" rating because that is what my experience with the book, but that being said I really think there are some guy readers who would really enjoy this book, so you should consider giving this book a read.