The First...of a Series I will Surely Continue!

What a great story. I went into this book with low expectations, as there are not many reviews, and I'm so glad I gave this one a try. This book is quick to action and delivers a heroine that is not afraid to use her superpowers from moment one. There is death and morality, . There are underlying stories that will come to surface. There is kindness and boy are there superpowers used the way we all secretly dream of using them. I was expecting a heroine that would be afraid to use her powers and only get one or two scenes where they were truly used. However, I consistently received my superpower fix and loved our heroine was not afraid to deliver an elevated level of violence to those that clearly deserved it, while still managing to keep a superman-esque level of morality.

This one is worth more than one credit.

11 people found this helpful

Unbelivably Misandristic

What disappointed you about The First?

The unbelievable portrayal of every male character as a miserable piece of social refuse.

What could Kipjo K. Ewers have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Public servants that wouldn't rather wait till after a section of city was destroyed before unveiling a piece of paper.

What about Carla Mercer-Meyer’s performance did you like?

She was fine.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The First?

The 20 minute detour from the story to make sure we knew, a largely irrelevant female character, shouldn't be judged harshly because men were really to blame for her being a convicted murderer.

Any additional comments?

Some of the super powers are nice.

8 people found this helpful

Loved the story and the reader

Where does The First rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

About mid-way. I've listened to perhaps 50-60 on Audible and other sources.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Sophia - yeah, most powerful but I liked her most because she didn't want to rule the world or anything, just kept trying to help people.

What does Carla Mercer-Meyer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great inflections and voice modulations to really make the characters sound different, despite coming from the same reader.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Flashbacks of her husbands murder and to when her jail friend committed her crime (TOTALLY JUSTIFIED).

Any additional comments?

Editing flaws really stood out. Carla's voice would, perhaps 7 times in the book, end a paragraph or chapter and INSTANTLY begin a new one. Kind of threw off the balance of a smoothly told story - not blaming Ms. Mercer-Meyer.

6 people found this helpful

it's alright

Just to start, I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the series progressing. I did quickly realize though that this was not expertly written, so don't read with incredibly high hopes for execution. But definitely was some light breezy fun.

There was good flow and pacing to the story, though the author does get bogged down in over explanation and repeatings. Most of the characters are cookie cutter with the main character being somewhat mary sue like. Most of the dialogue was terrible, sounding as though it were written for 90's television.

I often felt this story was a vent for the author's personal grievances and irritations with the real world. Many moments in this story involved characters or even the author themself pontificating on an injustice or problem and having those around them realize the error of their ways. There were other moments which felt unnecessarily tacked on or inserted just for some cathartic release of frustration by the author.

All that criticism aside, this is a pretty interesting superhero coming to power story. It was engaging enough and had enough interesting twists to keep me interested. I am curious as to where the story will go next.

13 people found this helpful

The first mary sue

The story started really well and I was quite interested in where it was going but then cliche after cliche continued and character motivations didn't align with actions so I slowly lost interestand it became a chore to finish.

Unnecessary backstories of characters that are only relevant in the story for a blink of a page if not less that feel like filler / a waste of time.

and a pet peeve of using "brandished the heckler and Koch" instead of the actual guns name and using clip instead of a magazine.

overall this story needed a better editor if it even had one because I really wanted to like it but it just devolved to cliche tropes and the power creep of the main character just got boring by the final arc.

2 people found this helpful

Good story/performance, Gutter slang ruined it.

Would you try another book from Kipjo K. Ewers and/or Carla Mercer-Meyer?

This book supposes educated scientists and top level law enforcement use gutter slang trash mouth speech as a normal way of talking. Uneducated people people calling each other foul words in normal conversation is the reality in many places, but not in books I choose to listen to or read.

Do you think The First needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Has one, Not going to pick it up.

Any additional comments?

BITCH let me tell you...... the black uneducated slang talk does not belong in a sci-fi thriller being used by supposedly educated scientists, military generals, FBI directors.... it just ruined the otherwise good book.

2 people found this helpful

trucking through the woods in Alabama

aside from the reader's occasional mispronunciation or misplaced emphasis on some words this was a pretty entertaining book.

2 people found this helpful

Review of The First

Where does The First rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

On a scale 1-10 about a 6

Would you recommend The First to your friends? Why or why not?

Yes. The tone of it was relaxed. The wording used by the characters had the right ethnic tones which I related to.

Did Carla Mercer-Meyer do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Yes.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Most definitely. There were some parts that dragged on too long like the part where she shows that her memory is perfect.

Any additional comments?

The speed at the beginning of the book was fast but once you got the rhythm it was fine.

4 people found this helpful

The new Stan Lee

Omg this series gets better with every installment! Awesome mixture of Iron Driud and Super Heroes!

1 person found this helpful

Writing style

A few people criticized the writing style of this author saying it was not 'expertly written'. I believe the author wrote exactly how he wanted his characters to sound, so the alleged 'grammatical errors' are not errors at all.
Im sure Kipjo could have written in perfect flawless diction... but.. Why? He wrote it his way... the only 'way' that matters.

1 person found this helpful