I hate leaving a two star review almost as much as I would hate to receive one. But the idea of someone stumbling across a book that might make them lose their minds having to read it top to bottom of every page makes me want to leave a bit of warning. And the idea that someone would pay for the book, makes my heart literally break.
The anonymous book in question would be a GOOD book, with just the cited pages however. It’s very informative, but trying to read the author’s “voice” is like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube made out of spaghetti. (And now I’m hungry.)
Although I don’t have it in me to tell you the title of the book, I DO have the heart to tell you that it’s number one in several non-fiction kindle categories which leaves me with a bit of a sour, not grapes kind of sour, taste in my mouth (or maybe it is grapes...still hungry).
The book in question was cited on almost 75 percent of the 178 page book, and what wasn’t cited were dialogue examples that hurt to read, even just reading it to myself and not out loud made my brain lose oxygen.
I won’t give you a direct quote on the off-chance it might be a way to track the book down. And I’m not here to publicly call someone out by name and insult their “baby.” As a writer I know that’s how we look at our creations, even more so when someone doesn’t have kids of their own, like me.
This created example is in the same vein of what she had for dialogue of a REAL supposed situation:
“The time has come for me to leave you unto your own devices.You bested me, and you shall never hear from me again.”
Toward the end of the book it is packed to the ultimate hilt with these Shakespearean-esq situational quotes. Included are hundreds of variations of a particular word. Imagine seeing the word situational, situation, situationally or situating on every paragraph, or that was how it started to seem. Just reading this over again, makes me feel like I’ve lost a few brain cells. This was not the word she used, but the word she did use would make the book easy to find since it was in the title and somewhat unique.
What I am prepared to do is speak out against a book with little redeeming qualities other than the cited pages and how it can be hailed as a number one in several categories on kindle. And manage to receive mostly five stars.
It read like someone who was trying to reach the word count on a high school book report at times, repeating the same general information to the readers through out and extending sentences with words that didn’t need to be used in order to get her point across to the audience... *See what I did there?
How does such a book exist? I realize this isn’t plagiarism and citing is absolutely required and necessary but if you have nothing new to bring to the book and what you do add to it breaks someone’s will to ever want to read again, it feels like you are making money off the backs of your betters and that really bothers me.
You might be asking...or mumbling to yourself...geez lady if it was that bad why did you keep reading it? And I’ll answer you by saying it was something I picked to review for free from another site, and I felt it needed a real review since the reviews that were left were not all that accurate.
Have you ever come across such a book? And how does it make you feel?
