Book review: Experience Pipeline

I was recently contacted by the publishers of the book "Experience Pipeline, by Quinn Haber", to review it. However I can find that this situation is like a double edged sword, because I'm looking forward to reading a new surf book but at the same time I'm very aware that the book is a gift and has taken someone a lot of hours and passion to create so that if I don't enjoy it, its sometimes tricky to be wholly objective. Unfortunately the latter has been the case with "Experience Pipeline"

The book itself is unlike any other I've seen as its a "multiple adventure story" based upon surfing the Pipemaster competition, at Pipeline , Northshore, Oahu, but its based on the idea of flipping a coin after each short paragraph which then leads the reader through different scenarios and ultimately a new story every time you pick up the book. However for me this left me bored after only a few minutes, but to be fair I'm not exactly the main demographic that this is aimed at.

You may have got the sense already on my opinion of "Experience Pipeline" but I don't want to slag it off completely as that'd be unfair as it does have some upsides. This flip coin idea is quite cool and I'm sure would appeal to younger readers, the text itself is well written, theres some great graphics and description of the reef and wave at Pipe and theres a comprehensive surf glossary at the back.

On the downside the stories themselves only took a few minutes for me to read and complete, the flipping of the coin interrupted the flow, the text sometimes didn't match too well from one move to the next, some of the plot lines were a little far fetched and the names of the main protagonists were a bit daft. The author obviously knows pipeline intimately and with the writing and plots he's created could have come up with a good short story or novel. But the book is aimed an adolescent, internet generation so this book may well suit readers with a shorter attention span (not meaning to be derogatorary, but we are talking about teenagers here!) and the plot lines and characters should appeal to them.

In summary, this is a book for 12-15 year old boys, who are into surfing, but not into digging their nose into a book for any length of time....

So if you fit this description I'm sure you'll love it.