Promise: A Book of Death by David Applebury

[Content Warnings: blood, caner, child death, death, death of parents, genocide, gore, slavery, terminal illness, violence, war]

Promise: A Book of Death by David Applebury follows the ‘life’ of a man after he dies and all that comes with a unique situation such as his. Having been thrown into the deep end of the afterlife, he navigates the tasks and tribulations of his new role with his companion, Death.

It’s been over a week since I finished the book and I’m still figuring out what happened, and I mean that in the worst way possible. After the first few chapters, I figured this book would be about death, fuelled by religious discussion and philosophical themes. However, I struggled to find any real storyline or overall point to the novel, something only exacerbated by the many plot holes and the complete lack of explanation in certain areas. Having repeated “wait, what” several times, I’ve had to conclude that this book just left me agitated and confused as opposed to wanting more.

To add to this, the writing needed another round, or two, of edits. It is clear the author threw himself into a dictionary and thesaurus - with overly convoluted words being used that often didn’t accurately portray what he wanted to convey. Furthermore, the lack of punctuation, other than an excessive use of exclamation marks and ellipses, was really off-putting, especially when paired with words like “said” and “stated”. Sentences were often punctuated with exclamation marks unnecessarily and not in a way that fit with the tone of the sentence.

Additionally, the number of similes and metaphors in this book is astounding and goes far beyond what any book needs, especially with phrases like “I soaked it up like a dried-out sponge thrown into a bucket of water.” These types of similes really devalue the work in my opinion, and after seeing such bizarre sentences I find it hard to re-immerse myself in the world.

Another point I noticed about the writing style is the over description and discussion about subjects routinely resulted in the meaning being thrown out the window, or the direction of the sentence being lost. Paragraphs going on and on describing something fairly insignificant has the effect of losing the reader, and the writing in the process, because when reading it back you realise you have no clue what you’re reading or writing about. This happened several times, and often had the effect of contradicting what was said at the beginning of the point the writer was making.

One final point that I have to mention is the absolute lack of diversity in this book. There was only one female character who was mentioned in about 4 pages and that’s it. Personally, I find it impossible to read a book, whether it be based on real life or the afterlife that only discusses men, with no explanation for the lack of women.

Overall, it really is a shame that I found reading this book a struggle when the premise was really promising. The storyline really did intrigue me, but it was, sadly, poorly executed.

Rating: ⭐/5