Wolfkind, by Stephen Melling

This should have been a good novel:  an assassin is at large, and our hero will infiltrate a crime syndicate to find and eliminate the bad guy.   I made it 10% of the way through before stopping; this book is unreadable.

Why is that?  The writing is just too difficult to get through.   Here are some samples:

"Familiar resentment of her father seeped into her thinking and reawakened feelings she had tried so hard to repress."

"Sinking into his seat, Joshua gazed into the depths of his beer glass.  Tiny bubbles floated through the golden liquid to the surface, bobbed there a few seconds, then popped.  Many of his inhibitions seemed to pop along with them, become gas and air.  Tormented by the desire to tell his secret, Joshua gazed fixedly at the old man."

"He tossed the scrapbook aside and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. A spider's web of cracks radiated from the light fitting. For the first time in his life the ceiling above him was not his own. This unsettled him in a way he found hard to define. Intensified his feeling of alienation. He rolled onto his side and stared at the wall, thinking about the handgun and poisoned load at the bottom of his bag. Before long, his eyelids grew heavy and he fell asleep."

And so did I.

Wolfkind