Wordhunter by Stella Sands

Audio Book Review - Read Do Not Listen

I was an English major in college, but I never understood diagramming sentences. I believed It was a waste of my time.  Predicate nominatives, dangling participles, run-ons—some of them just were foreign concepts for me.  Passive voice?  Sure, I understand the importance of avoiding that, but diagramming a sentence just to do so?  No way.

Wordhunter by Stella Sands is a mystery novel that heavily incorporates sentence diagramming.  This diagramming is a great distraction from the otherwise enjoyable mystery.  Readers will learn about forensic linguistics and handwriting analysis, while also learning about the protagonist Maggie Moore and why she is obsessed with sentence structure.

Maggie is a sentence-diagramming genius studying to be a forensic linguist.  She is a young woman with a tough past, covered in tattoos and piercings, and with a big chip on her shoulder against the police.  Putting herself through school, her sole purpose for getting this particular degree is to help her locate her long-lost 7th-grade friend. The only clue Maggie has to go on is a trail of blood leading out of the rundown trailer where she lived.

Maggie is positive her friend was abducted. She would never just leave her like that! When she disappeared, the police did a lackluster job searching for clues and answers.  So, Maggie decided to gain the necessary skills to find her personally.

Because of her linguistics training, Maggie is tapped to help the local police solve a stalker  case.  The officer who contacts her sizes her up based on her appearance and dismisses her as a waste of time.  The perpetrator sends the victim texts, telling her what he is going to do to her when he gets her. 

Maggie explains to the reader how she breaks down the texts into pieces and then easily guides the police to the correct person.  Begrudgingly, the police officer thanks her for the help.  This sets Maggie in motion to start using the skills she is studying and to push her closer to finding her lost friend.

My main issue with this book is the extensive sentence diagramming.  When listening to the audiobook, the narrator reads all the sentences that Maggie diagrams in her head.   For example, I would now go back and break down word by word the first two sentences in this paragraph grammatically.  Subject and object, verb, and if there is one, predicate. Lordy, who cares? 

This goes on and on throughout the entire book.  Therefore, I recommend reading this book rather than listening to it.  Maggie’s coping mechanism is to diagram entire long sentences.  And she needs to cope a lot with the kind of work she is doing.  How bad is it to listen to?  I fast forwarded 30 seconds every time she started to diagram.

Wordhunter is not a long book.  It is an excellent read on a plane, by the pool, or over a snowy weekend inside.  Unless you love diagramming, or want to learn how to, I recommend you skip over these parts