Readers’ Favorite review – 5-STARS

https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/life-before-death

Life Before Death by Matthew William Frend is a paranormal fiction novel with a fresh take on the genre. It begins with a road trip across Australia, where characters are determined to live life to the fullest and make their dreams come true. It isn't often that people feel free enough or confident enough to live the life they really want. Society has too many constraints. But what if those constraints were bypassed? What if you went rogue and did exactly what your heart desired? This is basically an odyssey about these sorts of realized dreams and goals. It's for the adventurer inside most of us that yearns to be free but isn't quite sure how to go about it, or if we even should. For souls that are daring enough, read on.

The travels and experience had by the characters are met by unexpected events, and you, like they, are left with questions that beg to be answered. These characters throw caution to the wind and challenge authority by pursuing a business venture, much like the youth of the Sixties. As you read, you will meet an eclectic, fascinating collection of people along the way. You will be educated, charmed, and enlightened. The author's style is light but serious, and he knows how to create flesh and bone characters that stay with you. You feel for them as they encounter one thing after another--homelessness, freedom, the elements, and more. You may find yourself vicariously experiencing new sensations, right along with the characters, and this is the talent of the author shining through. The glossary at the beginning of the book is especially informative. If you like stories about independence, survival, philosophies, and the fringes of society, Life Before Death by Matthew William Frend is a perfect choice. ( )

I thank the author for giving me a copy of his book in exchange for my honest (I dreaded writing) review.

💨 “Life Before Death” by Matthew William Frend is about a group of young rebels. These friends travel across the Australian outback in search of adventure and the meaning of life and death. They concoct a money-making scheme to fight against the social constructs of a polite, law-abiding society. Their northward journey from the southern part of Australia to the northern part takes the group through Coober Pedy.

Coober Pedy is an opal mining settlement in a hellish desert area of Australia where the residents carve out caves to live underground so they can survive scorching surface temperatures. I found that part of the story fascinating.

The primary characters end up at a horse ranch. There are some interesting descriptions of training as one of the characters is a “horse whisperer.” That is the part of the story I most enjoyed.

The theme of the story is living life as you want before dying. The book also touches on the stupidity of bigotry. This group of young rebels approaches their life before death thought experiment by spending most of their time high—smoking weed or taking psilocybin mushrooms. Then they begin navel-gazing on the meaning of life.

Imagine a drug-fueled Cheech and Chong seriously contemplating the meaning of life. Then you have the gist of this story.

In my opinion, the author squandered opportunities to make the story exciting by not focusing upon possible areas of conflict that might occur between this group of renegades and the societal antagonists they were trying to avoid. As a creative piece, this book needs work because there are errors; spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Criticisms aside, there are some real gems in the writing and storytelling. I hesitate to read Matthew William Frend's “The Free World War because of my experience with this one. ( )

Life Before Death, by Matthew Frend
(A fair and honest review in return for a review copy)

The dialogue and use of Australian vernacular is good, really giving a feel for a background that won't feel exactly familiar to other Anglophones. Brits and Irish people will feel a lot closer than North Americans because our use of banter/sarcasm/comedy etc is much more similar.

I love the description of falling foul of a bad roadway! It rackets the tension up, it's distinctively Australian in the reaction to the infrastructure being wonky (because if you get stuck nobody might come along and rescue you), and the fact that they have to play loud rock--until that makes it even worse--is hilarious, and it's the first time the novel really took off for me. Most of the stuff about weather (and that you have to co-operate with other people or you're stuck in a bad situation) really works, and when the narrative takes off with dialogue and description it's a lot more readable.

The soapboxing against the "war on drugs" in America is largely familiar to anyone who's read a book on the subject: Nixon's government realised they could go after the left as "hippies" who used marijuana, while using heroin to go after black people as "brutal thugs".

One of the minor characters, Pete, wishes he were free to have a gun, because only "weak" or "not adult" characters can't handle having guns or dealing heroin. I think he's meant to be less likeable than the main characters, but it's actually hard to make out because the author's use of viewpoint is weakish for much of the book.

I think this is the cause of a lot of the apparent infodumping, where characters and plot recede and the book feels like a guidebook or a polemic.

To be fair, although I wasn't sure whether or not one was supposed to dislike Pete, when the author has truly nasty Australian characters to write, the ones that dismiss the main characters as "ferals", and the Aboriginal reservation as a "nigger camp", the criticism lands. The main characters are gently clueless (in a friendly manner) about race: straight away telling Timbo they've heard of taking care of hair without harmful chemicals seems a little unfortunate (I'm white, but there's a whole cultural Thing about "natural hair" vs "trying to make it look white-person-hair", which makes the whole detail of "friendly passing hippies instantly tell person of another race how to do their hair" a complete cringe). I wondered if this "innocent racism" would be underlined by Timbo being wheeled on to mention the Dreamtime as what TV Tropes calls a "Magical Negro" character (that is, one who is briefly presented to affect white characters with their inner wisdom) but luckily Timbo joins in the action and is presented as fully as the white Australian characters, and the hair thing appears to be one character talking without brain fully engaged.

The novel is written in loose third-omniscient viewpoint with sometimes more "telling" than "showing", which doesn't do the narrative many favours. When dialogue, action and sensory focus all go together it's fine, but what I noticed is that if the author is trying to introduce something like drug history or horses he does a lot of infodumping for a few paragraphs which stops the narrative dead for a bit until someone says something or something happens.

The author manages to infodump stuff he can otherwise handle quite well. The horses come in with a few paragraphs of dry information, but as soon as the characters handle horses it's clear that they're not simply cars with hooves, and the author is either very familiar with them or has talked to people who are. The description of trying to rescue a young horse who has been spooked by wild budgies is a stand-out scene! Likewise, the motorcycle culture is brought in with dry information, but when a character makes a sarcastic remark about the "high-pitched whine" of the engine noise from his mate's particular bike, that works much better.

The "new age spiritual consciousness" described in similar terms to a bad romance-novel orgasm scene (when in doubt, reach for the purple prose) doesn't work for me, and doesn't reach the same level of intensity as a more practiced writer in the field like, say, Richard Bach, Carlos Castaneda or even Lobsang Rampa. But if that's your jam you'll probably go for this a lot more than I did! Warning for uncritical belief that psychotropic drugs let you see what's "really there", and uncritical belief that "natural" = "safe".

The book rather tailed off at the end, and I wasn't at all sure whether it was meant to be complete or open a sequence.

Dictionary-level proofreading is fine, and there are only a few errors.

I really enjoyed this, because when it got into stuff like details of Australian life it was great fun, it gave me a window into a new culture, but also because using my critical-thinking muscles rather than just dropping the book the first time it bored me allowed me to try to pick up what would (probably) work for the target audience vs what might need fixing.

I think if the author makes his next book more tonally consistent by being more deeply aware of what the characters see, hear, think, and feel, that would pull out of the "infodumping" problem and make POV much stronger. Maybe he is aware of what they're thinking and feeling, and just thinks it's all down clearly on the page. As an amateur writer myself, I have to fix (or get other people to fix) problems with my poor visualisation all the time!

If he tries to write a chapter per viewpoint, say, and ask himself "Well, I know/think this but how and why does the character?" it's likely to strengthen things a bit. POV discipline also encourages the writer to try to intensify detail. Either that, or go properly third-omniscient and have the narrative voice strongly consistent so it's a character in its own right and can enter all the characters' thoughts deeply--the problem with the infodumping is that it feels it doesn't really belong to anybody and it's just flailing about.

“Life Before Death” by Matt Frends

I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

“Life Before Death” was not the typical read for me. However, I was very pleased with the outcome of this book. The entire novel makes you think – it definitely made me ponder a few things. This novel was about serious matters, but I still had a good time reading it. The imagery was amazing and I actually felt like I was there in Australia; I always wanted to visit there and now I do even more. It was almost as if I were on my own road trip through the Australian Country. I give this book 4 stars!

I enjoyed the characters of this novel. I especially liked Mandi and Robyn and the conversations they would have. They had such strong opinions and were very deep thinkers and I found myself wanting to know what they were going to say throughout the story. I like that each character stayed true to who they were regardless of what the norm was. They wanted to live life their way and not according to what the government thought was the right thing. Mandi and her friends thought certain laws didn’t make sense and didn’t understand why society was forced to act a certain way. They made plans to go on a road trip and decided to grow their own cannabis because the government made hemp illegal. The friends had a lot of ups and downs on their trip – partying and hanging out with friends, as well as run-ins with the authorities. Mandi even had a vision that made her question everything and want to know the age old questions of, “Why are we here?”

Join author Matt Frends in his well-written novel “Life Before Death” to experience the road trip with Mandi and her friends. Find out the result of the cannabis they are growing, and see if they can get away with it. Also, learn what the characters opinions on life and society are. You may find yourself asking some questions of your own as well!

Brianna Lee Book Reviews
http://www.briannaleereviews.blogspot.com ( )