Star Rating

If you are looking for a great read, just stop here. You’ve found it.

I gave Eleanor The Unseen 5 stars. Eleanor’s story is superb. I could see this rising to be one of the books that captures many of readers.

The second half passed the stay up late test. It was so good I stayed up til 2:45 AM finishing the story. The first half was good, but I could put it down and go to sleep.

The renewing of a childhood friendship was done amazingly well. The progression of the story, Eleanor’s character arc, all enhanced the enjoyment of this novel for me.

Book Details

Eleanor The Unseen by Johnny Worthen is 360 pages. Jolly Fish Press published it on July 1, 2014. It is a young adult novel approved for ages 12 and up.

The novel’s premise

A girl of 15 wants to remain a wallflower to hide who and what she really is.

Editing

Quality: Average

I made almost a dozen editing highlights that will glaring typos. Also, the editors allowed a lot of weak sentences. Most weak sentences are easy to find as they are passive voice and slow down the reading. Added to the eBook isues and there were over twenty glaring issues with the novel.

Imagination and Uniqueness

I wouldn’t normally call a paranormal romance unique, but this book did not have the feel of other paranormal romance novels. I felt it was unique, but what was unique. It took me a while to realize the uniqueness was in the details. First, it wasn’t completely romance. It was part well-done cancer drama in Tabitha. It was part well-done high school girl-boy drama. It was part an introduction to small town life. It was part introduction to an Native American (Shoshone) folklore.

Characters

Eleanor is a girl of fifteen trying to stay ignored by her peers in a small town with a small K through 12 school. Why she chooses to hide in plain sight is a mystery.

Tabitha, Eleanor’s adopted mother, almost steals the show—er novel. She is a very well-written character. He story and her fight with cancer is almost worthy of her own novel.

David Venn is a good guy. A childhood friend who moved away and has moved back around the start of sophmore year.

Magic System (fantasy) / Real Science (Science Fiction)

It is pretty much magical realism done well. One person is special in the entire novel. The world is normal. The specialty followed scientific rules. Laws of matter and mass, and one could argue that this was natural fiction, not science fiction.

eBook Quality

Quality: Below Average

Update: The publisher notified me that the below formatting issue has been resolved.

The Kindle format had indents of a single space. It really distracted my reading. In fact, it was a distracting problem for me for the entire book. Indents should be a minimum of two spaces and three to five is recommended. It was especially difficult during dialog with quotes. This is an inexcusable mistake by the publisher.

Multiple times after hyphen, either a new line or a carriage return broke the sentence to the next line early.

The story deserves 5 stars but the eBook formatting didn’t. In fact, if the formatting is improved, I will gladly come back and edit rate this book 5 stars.

Parental Guide

Profanity: There was very minor swearing. No extreme words.
Sexuality: There is little more than teenage hormones.
Violence: Minor fighting. Knife wounds.

About the Author

Johnny (Tie Dye) Worthen is also the author of Beatresyl. He graduated with a B.A. in English, minor in Classics and a Master’s in American Studies from the University of Utah. His novels have a very realistic feel. He lives in Sandy, Utah and enjoys spending time with his boys.