Running Together

Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers BooxAi, Inc, via Library Thing.

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Let’s get this out of the way right up front: I did not finish this book.

Not every book that makes it to the LTER review list is fine literature. Many appear to be from beginning writers, and while those early efforts may have some rough patches, it’s generally possible for a reviewer to soldier on. Not. This. Time.

The review offering Einav Aflalo’s ‘Running Together’ says “This story shows how an innocent little girl called Anna becomes the victim of abuse, which deeply injures her soul for good. It's a story that anyone should read in order to learn how innocent children could become abuse show more victims and how this could affect them. Through this book, we can have a deeper look into the victims' minds and maybe acquire a better insight into how to take better care of our own children.”

Okay, fair enough. It’s obvious that there will be at least discussion of child sexual abuse (teen, as it turns out), and the cover note indicates “+21”. But this is not – as far as I could tell – a serious look at how young women get pulled into the sex trade and what it takes for rescued victims to put their lives back together.

The first 20 pages (or roughly 10% of the book, which was as far as I got) is a poorly-written amalgam of straight-up porn (a flashback, you see), followed by an unlikely series of events involving a rainstorm, a conveniently empty house with lots of beds and a well-stocked wine cellar, and a more-or-less random group consisting of four college girls and – surprise! – four college boys all wandering in for shelter, with the expected results.

A casual skimming of the remaining pages shows several more flashbacks, a family reunion scene that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and some therapy sessions, but there really doesn’t appear to be anything going on here that would make reading it worth the effort.

I don’t think this thing was even proofread, let alone edited. In Chapter 2, for instance, which is a whole four pages long, we find the following egregious errors:
• She wasn’t the type who was late on the regular, but after she started living here, it was investable.
• Her bag giggles on her back as she rushes through the rain…
• Anna was drenched from the rain and wet everything around her, including her desk, chair, and some of the class’ floor…
• She even took a few curses from the business-management department…
• Anna’s eyes lid up…
• Anna said her ‘Thank you’ and shaved the piece of paper into her jeans…

These felony-level assaults on the English language continue throughout the book and can be seen even while just skimming the text, along with random slippage between current and past tense within the same paragraph, same sentence, and occasionally within the same phrase!
• “I’m sorry, dear, we don’t,” Martha answered, knowing she’s disappointing the poor kid.

Please don’t waste your time with this dreck. I’m giving it half a star because I have to give it something. show less

My heart absolutely breaks for this girl. I have so much to say about this.

Running Together tries to advertise itself as a comforting story for victims of sexual abuse, but it becomes clear very quickly the author shouldn't have written this story about such a heavy topic she has no experience with, at least in the form of what happens in the story. The characters are very poorly written (the main character, Anna, is extremely annoying and goes from screaming her head off at everything to having "the tiniest voice in the world"), the plot makes absolutely no sense, and the ending made me really angry. In no universe would a competent therapist tell her patient that "You're a strong person because anyone else would've killed themselves show more by now", or "Why don't we go visit your rapist and hear his side of the story?". It is very obvious that Einav Aflalo has no license or authority to offer any sort of advice on this subject. Can you imagine 50 Shades of Grey, but with children as sex slaves? That isn't comforting, it's actually disgusting how graphic and unnecessary the imagery was for being a complete work of unbelievable fiction.

This book is entirely unedited from start to finish, and it's obvious from the way it was written that this draft was never even glanced at after the words hit the page (An object is described as a "Thingy"). Absolutely no time or effort was put into this. It felt more like an inexperienced D&D Dungeon Master scrambling to make something up on the spot when the story was written into a corner ("The storm destroyed her car" Excuse me, what? How?).

There is also a very graphic sex scene that essentially glorifies the idea that women should feel extreme amounts of pain when they have penetrative sex with the people they love. If pain is your thing, that's fine, but to normalize a "loving" sexual encounter as having such levels of pain as to make her scream is sick, and women should never have to believe that pain is a normal part of having sex. The story does far more harm than good to everybody involved and I can't believe it was made into print. The author isn't an advocate for children, victims, or even women.

This poor girl was scammed by this "BooxAI" publisher who took full advantage of her eagerness to take her money and produce an end result this completely inexcusable. The publisher hides behind the idea that everybody has a story, but this book made me realize that not every story deserves to be told.

Again, I feel absolutely terrible for this girl. Please, if you're reading this, this book is in desperate need of drastic rewrites. Do yourself a favour and hire an editor. You have a completed book here but you need to submit more than the first unedited draft for publishing. You need to distance yourself from the publisher for your own good. You can really make a name for yourself with a book like this but you need to put in the effort and go through the motions properly before rushing it out the door. Don't use these scam publishers, find a competent editor who can offer constructive criticism and tell you when something won't work.

I'm so sorry this happened to you and I don't want you to give up on being a writer but it is so vital that you don't cut corners doing this. This book could be something with the proper amount of time put into it.

Normally I would thank the publisher for the review copy but I have no interest nor anything positive to say about that company after the way this author was treated. There is absolutely no reason this should have been published, and I can only blame BooxAI for allowing this inexperienced author to tarnish her name on her first book. That's absolutely repulsive to me. show less

If I hadn't received this book in exchange for a review, I wouldn't have finished it. Having said that, I found that it improved towards the end of the book and I actually started to care about the characters and their personal redemption from their shared past.

The key issue I had with the book was that it felt like it had been translated into English from another language, using an online tool, with no additional proof-reading. For the first few chapters, I was even wondering if it had been written by AI software! It was a struggle to read throughout because of this and the story didn't flow well either.

As the aim of this book (according to the cover) is to help give readers "a better insight on how to take better care for our own show more children" (even the grammar of that bothers me!), it really should have looked at that more. There are some graphic grooming and sexual abuse sections of the book that could be toned down significantly whilst still giving an insight into the issues involved. The information about grooming actually felt like it could be of use to the reader, with warning signs to be aware of, the details of the abuse just felt like they were there to shock.

With some thorough editing and more focus on the stated purpose of the book, instead of detailed scenes of abuse, this could be a better book. I feel that the author had good intentions and could deliver something readable, with more work on character development and the flow of the story. More emphasis on the characters experience of coping (after the trauma) and less detail of the trauma itself, would help. show less

I received this book from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review. I hardly ever give 1 star reviews to books. I usually find something to fall in love with. This book just didn't do it for me.

For one thing, the storyline was very weak and confusing. I didn't understand the point of all these characters meeting in a random house during a rainstorm. Or why all these characters were necessary. Add in alternating points of view between these characters that don't mean much to the story, and it was challenging to follow along. I didn't feel connected with any of the characters. Anna irritated me with how much she screamed and yelled about everything for no apparent reason. Most of the characters were annoying at the end of the day. show more

It seems too convenient that both Adrian and Anna were in the same sex warehouse and now are dating. It also seems too convenient that at the end they both suddenly have hugely successful lives and are famous. It was just too much for me.

The books had lots of spelling and grammatical errors that made me shocked this is in print. Another thing is the author shows emphasis WITH ALL CAPS instead of something simpler like italics. This happens a lot. Put this all together and it boils down to a one star for me. Maybe this will be the book for someone, but it's not the book for me. show less

I received this book as part of the early review system in exchange for an honest review.

I found this a difficult and disturbing book about the consequences of child sexual abuse and trauma. There were aspects of it that were OK, the story was potentially interesting but it was very flawed.

This read like a first draft. It needed an awful lot of editing to make it more readable. Even more frustratingly, it clearly hadn't been proof read and there were numerous errors which sometimes made it difficult to understand the meaning.

So therefore, not the worst book ever, but with work, it could turn into readable book.

I think the idea for the story was good, and I enjoyed the premise of the book and the story that was trying to be told, but I feel like the plot needed more development. There were also really gaping plot holes, especially at the beginning of the book that made it really hard to get into. I almost stopped reading the book a few chapters in, though by the end I did start to connect more with the main characters. Further editing is required, the book is full of spelling and grammar issues which are really distracting. I think the story was good, but the book needed more work.

I want to start by saying I am rating this 3 stars instead of 4 because of the editing or lack there of. It does appear English is her second language; however, there are still too many errors.

The book follows Anna and Adrian who meet while getting stuck at a strange house during a major rain storm. Anna is extremely closed off but Adrian is fascinated by her. He goes through some extremes to get her attention. As they spend time together, Anna finally trust him enough to talk him about her past. She was sexually assaulted as a teenager in a warehouse the adults called Academia. After she finishes telling him, Adrian is crying because he was a victim of the same place.

The book is about their healing and saving each other. This was a show more really good book that kept my attention. show less