As I finished Cleansed, I had to sit back and wonder what the hell I just read. By the end of the book, I still hadn’t figured out whether there was a plot or if it was just a loosely strung-together series of events and abandoned plot threads. Each time the plot began to build in a direction, it felt like the author changed their mind, ditched it, and decided to go with something new. And it’s not that the story has plot twists frequently tossed in, it just keeps changing its course as if the book is more of a loosely related collection of short stories.
The book is a coming-of-age story for Dirge, an orphaned son of a prostitute, who apparently is predestined for some sort of greatness (though I’m not sure what exactly it will be as it changes often). As a coming-of-age story, the book spans over two decades, but this also causes additional issues with the plot. Chapters often jumped forward in time by months or even years, which made following the changing narrative even more difficult. Most of the characters and narrative hooks are also fairly cliché, so they didn’t add anything particularly interesting to help the reader keep track of the story.
Though I didn’t care for the overall organization of the book and its rambling plot, I did think individual chapters were well written. When looked at in isolation, parts of the book were interesting and enjoyable to read. I can tell the author has a talent for writing dialog, character interactions, and building suspense. The action in the series was also well done and though there were some pretty graphic descriptions of blood, gore, and unsavory actions, most were included to bring to life the dark and grim setting and show some of the more intriguing cultural aspects of living in a world ruled by chaos. I just wish the plot meshed together better and everything made sense when looking at the book as a whole.
I will also mention a warning – this book examines some primal issues concerning the nature of morality, the fickle definitions of good and evil, and it brings up some pretty existential questions surrounding religion and the worship of deities. Deeply religious people may want to avoid reading this book as they could find some of the comparisons to real-world religions disturbing or distasteful. I’m not turned off by violence either, but as Cleansed has some pretty graphic depictions of blood, gore, and some heinous, despicable acts, those triggered by such should probably avoid it.
I think one saving grace, at least for the audio version of the book, was the performance of the narrator. The narrator has some talent, able to portray a very wide range of characters with unique voices, accents, and characterizations. As I’ve said before that sometimes a good narrator can save a bad book – and though I wouldn’t say that Cleansed is a bad book, the narration certainly kept me entertained enough to finish it despite my issues with the plot. I’d certainly recommend looking up other books with the same narrating and giving them a try.
Special thanks to Sean Duregger, who provided me with this book at my request.