Pineville Heist by Less Chambers

The Pineville Heist

Lee Chambers

 

Seventeen year old Aaron stumbles into the aftermath of a five million dollar bank heist gone wrong. Hiding under a canoe, Aaron partially catches the murder of one of the robbers. In the chaos he sneaks away with the money and heads straight for the closest place of safety, his high school. Terrified, Aaron tells his shocking tale to Amanda Becker, his drama teacher, but it doesn't take long for one of the psychotic robbers to show up. In the locked down school the pair are relentlessly pursued in a quest to get the money back and wipe out the evidence.

Review and thoughts... 

Aaron and his father just don't get along. Aaron's father and his town don't get along. Aaron's father is basically hated by all in this book, though Aaron's own hatred towards his father, I believe is basically anger acting as hatred as Aaron's father constantly misses Aaron's performance in the school plays, in which he is always the lead. His father can be a jerk, though I don't think he's that bad--except I was second guessing myself when he kicked Aaron out of his limo. So, Aaron, aside from having a cool but confusing name (I don't get why there are two 'a's it doesn't make sense), is a very rich, very spoiled, very lonely kid. 

This book was okay, I didn't hate reading it, but I didn't love it, or really even like it that much. I have to say that I would only recommend this to a young boy, but even at that I would be hesitant to, because of the amount of gore in the book, in some cases it may be too much (though I do doubt that considering the video games that are played nowadays). 

So from reading a bit about Lee Chambers I found out that he is also a screen writer, my first feelings on his writing style was that, actually, it read like it was just converted from a screenplay into a book with very minor adjustments, such as adding in quotation marks. Every time the POV switches I can see a scene fading out. I do think that will make a good movie, kind of a Scooby Doo meets James Bond kind of thing--and for that reason alone I'll go see it. I found that though it would make a good movie, which it will become soon, the book doesn't really stand on its own--at all. 


I felt that this book lacked in eloquence on an epic scale. 
The characters could have had the possibility to be very engaging and deep connections to the characters could have been established but weren't because of the fact that they were all very flat, a it all seemed a little too cliched and orchestrated that way. 

Throughout the book the author switches heads a lot, but he doesn't do it successfully. The POV switches are done sloppily and inconsistently, sometimes it was hard to follow the story as there were very few clear clues as to whose head we were in.The POV switches weren't done well, as well, the antagonists seemed very simple--though, Amanda's part in the entire book did catch me slightly off guard, I really disliked her as a character. 

I feel that a good book has to have complex characters and complex problems to be fully engaging, and they  have to feel real in the mind of the reader, the book has to establish some connection with the reader or touch them on a deep level, but this book, I felt lacked all of that.

There wasn't any emotional attachment and the author seemed to favor telling the story over showing us the story, he also seemed to really like to add in an abundance of sentences and explanation points that were supposed to portray extreme tension or determination or excitement to the reader, but the overuse of them really took away the affect.


Now, I will tell you what I did like about this book...I liked how Aaron took care of himself and his teacher (though I still really dislike everything about Amanda--but mostly because she was just an annoying character--not a reflection on the writer or anything), I like how Aaron was a man of action, there were some really intense scenes that kept me reading, Aaron kept going no matter what--he came up with plans, went out and looked for his friends when no one would help him, he was very pro-action, which was awesome. I liked his sense of humor and felt for his situation, in some ways this book reminded me of Just Desserts because of the relationship and problems between the father and the son. I really do think this has the potential to be a really awesome movie, the melodramatic nature of this book will look much better on screen.