"Burning Sky" by Weston Ochse is filled with blood, pop culture references, and more blood. Following a team of five, the first half of the book is them dealing with not being in the army anymore, in their own ways. Some chose drugs, some chose food, some chose both, and one chose tinfoil clothes and techno music. Then they're given something to focus on, brought on by their leader, Boy Scout. He consistently feels like he's a character in a book, however. They're trying to save a young boy and his mother. The story is told from Boy Scout's, or Bryan Starling's perspective. But something's wrong, the boys mother says that she knows him already and knows what he's going to do to them. How can she when Bryan doesn't even know what he's going to do himself?

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I've heard a lot of good about Weston Ochse. I hadn't read any of his stuff previously, but I had already bought four of his books and put them in my To Be Read pile. So, it's no surprise that I was eager to read a book by him. Well ... weirdly the book both lived up to my expectations and yet left me disappointed.

Boy Scout, real name Bryan Starling, is in charge of an Tactical Support Team in Afghanistan. He and his team are escorting a General to a meeting when things go bad. Flash forward six months and Starling is dealing with some issues: overweight, out of shape, and working as a muscle for a small-time crook. He realizes that he has had enough and needs to face the problems he has been avoiding. And that's all I will say in order to avoid spoilers.

When I was reading the book, I powered through the first half in two, maybe three days. I was loving it. And then I hit the halfway point in the book where everything changes; once you get to that point, you'll know where I mean. For whatever reason, things quickly slowed down for me at that point. Maybe it was the new reality that I had to deal with. Maybe it was the tone switch of the book. Maybe it was just life keeping me busy with other things and distracted from the book. Whatever the reason was, it took me a while to get back into the book and finish it. The story and writing were both good. The characters were real and not cardboard cut-outs but at the same time, I stopped caring about them after that halfway point. I think that was due to the reality shift; subconsciously, and even consciously, I was waiting for another reality shift to occur and undo parts of the story. Don't get me wrong; I'm not claiming "foul". Ochse followed his own rules that he established in the book. And while the effect is very similar in tone to the movie From Dusk till Dawn, it does not have that "WTF?" craziness. The shift was still enough to make the reader re-evaluate the events of the story and, for me, that included re-evaluating the characters. I suppose I'm in a similar state to what I was before I read this book: I'm eager to read my next Weston Ochse but this time I'm eager to see which type of book I will get. ( )