One-star reviews never fail to bring out the emotions. Some of the most passionately written reviews are the single-starred ilk. So, without further ado, here are a collection of zany, zingy, zalongy one and two-star reviews:
Michal is BellaThis is such a juvenile romance that I could not force myself to finish it. How can I judge, then, you ask? Well, I am firmly of the camp that good writing hooks the reader. Absent that, it does not lose it's built in fan base. With historical fiction, ther...
Published on July 09, 2013 18:52
This review made me giggle and I hope it brings a smile to your face.
" The first chapter of a novel is the most valuable piece of real estate in a novel. It is where the story is won and lost. Unfortunately, in this book, the story was lost. In the first few pages, the hero loses his job and lands in jail with no more emotion or strife than a routine tooth extraction. Prior to leaving for Spain, he has a relatively emotionless run-in with his family. If you read the acknowledgment section of the book, the author clearly has a great attachment to his family. I would have rather seen it in the novel.
Then the main character heads to Spain, and I was looking forward to a Hemingway-esque travelogue. What I got instead was Austin Powers on holiday, without even the added tension of Dr. Evil trying to do him harm. He drinks a lot, and has sex with fembots - essentially the same hot women with different names. He is attached to nothing and no one, so how can the reader be attached to him?
This is a book in which nothing much happens, over and over, until something actually happens. Even when it does, the story is told in such a way that I felt like I was observing the action through a telephoto lens instead of being in the middle of events with the main character.
The best part of the book is toward the end, after the fire. The irony of the book Misery making an appearance is great, since the main character is trying to escape a situation in which he is a hostage. The flight from justice (or what passes for it) and the dastardly Paul are the parts of the book that hook the reader. I wish with all my might that this kind of tension had started on page 1 and persisted throughout the book.
David Perlmutter has a powerful, gripping story to tell, and there are ways to use scene and language and emotion and character to hook the reader and sustain their interest. In my opinion, that was not done well and properly early enough to catch me. I was done with this book before he ever got to Spain. I'm glad I stuck it out till the end, because the story is compelling, but to me it is a huge potential wasted by poor writing and storytelling."
There we have it, thank you for reading.
Wrong Place Wrong Time