Amazing Reviews: Meyer

This is a series where I review the best, worst book reviews from Amazon

This book was a bookshelf staple for many young girls and middle-aged women across the world. It spawned a movie series that launched the young career of Kristen Stewart as she played an awkward girl, a role that must have truly been a reach for her. Despite the unlikely combination of a whiny teenage girl, Native American werewolves, and the most shiny, uncharismatic vampires in the history of literature this book was a massive success. Thankfully there are those that withstood the trance of this teenage Nosferatu. Here are some of their thoughts:

Let Me Save You The Trouble Of Reading This Book: 1 Star on December 30, 2009

Chapter 1: Meet Bella. She is angry and depressed and moving to rainy depressing Forks WA to live with her Dad.
Chapter 2: Bella meets Edward and finds him very handsome. She is depressed and angry over it.
Chapters 3-13: Bella thinks about Edward a lot and is angry and depressed about it.
Chapter 14: Bella and Edward become an item she finds out he is a vampire. She is depressed and angry about it.
Chapters 15-21: Bella is angry and depressed and in love with Edward who fights off biting Bella.
Chapter 22: Bella gets attacked by another vampire. Edward saves Bella. She is angry and depressed about it.
Chapters 23 and 24: Bella is in the hospital recovering. She is outraged and depressed.
Epilogue: Edward surprises Bella taking her to prom. She is angry about it. The end

A concise breakdown of this book and much to my surprise it was met with nothing by agreement by commenters on this review. Bravo!

LOL Fun for the whole family! 1 Star on February 7, 2010

You know, if your family are all the victims of head trauma. Or in a home for the criminally delusional. This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. And thank goodness Ms. Meyer is encouraging young girls to develop relationships with abusive jerks who withold sexy-time as another means of controlling them into a freaky spiral of obsession! AND. I guess this means a few more years of the tiresome goth movement. I get it — you’re sad and you like bats.Oh, go play in an old fridge. Take Bella with you.

This review caught my eye because it’s not so much of a critique of the book as it voicing their own emotional history. With references to head trauma and equating abstinence to an abusive relationship, I’d say this reviewer has more things to worry about than the on-going “goth movement.”

just plain bad 1 Star on July 27, 2008

I really did not like this book. I picked it up because everyone said it is a must read, and that it was the best book ever. But when I actually read I figured out that it was a stupid book without a real plot. Now before you yell at me listen to this, Bella and Edward are in love right, but Stephanie Meyer doesn’t show you that in the book. They are just all of a sudden together, I mean theres no falling in love they are kind of just wary of each other then proffesing undying love. And they both say practically the same sentence throughout the entire book. Bella says “I love you!” and thats about it. And Edward says “I love you. But Im a vampire” and “I want to eat you, you smell so good.” And thats pretty much the whole book.

Okay that’s actually pretty good.

No Sexual Predators please 1 Star on February 27, 2009

Why is this book marketed to the 12 year old & up? I thought the book would be harmless for my daughter to read but when she shared some of the story with me I decided to read it for myself. Bella, the main character, is a willing victim, which is the worst kind of role model for a young reader. I had a thorough discussion with my daughter about why Bella’s actions were the absolute wrong thing to do in several incidents in the story. Bella walks through a desolate area of town & is threatened by four men. She knows rape is possible but doesn’t get herself out of the situation. Not to mention the 100 year old man, parading as a 17 year old high school student, who is sexually attracted to her. Creepy if he were her father’s friend but somehow ok because he’s a Vampire? And near the end Bella gives herself up to a different vampire for no discernible reason. She is disconnected from her family & obsessed with danger, but in a bipolar suicidal way. Horrible story, reprehensible characters, badly written. Please don’t buy this book.

Even though this reviewer is pretty much saying that if Bella is raped it’s her own fault, she does make at least one valid point. Edward can be considered  a 100 yr old sexual predator. If he had said this stuff in an internet chat room he’d have NBC & Chris Hansen knocking on his door.

So those are a few of the best reviews I read. And by ”best” I mean short enough to copy and paste as most of the one star reviews were three pages long. Among the reviews there were also a few good responses. This one is my favorite and I’ll leave it with you as my parting gift:

I’m an adult with grandchildren and I loved the book. Go figure.

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Wednesday’s Words: Lewis

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

Not since Miss Frizzle’s class has a school bus had crazier ride.

Anything written by C. S. Lewis is going to be full of wisdom so picking just one quote from him was difficult. I decided to pick one of the lesser known pieces of fiction he wrote and go from there. I picked A Great Divorce and found this quote I highlighted years ago. I thought it was timeless and classic.

On an unrelated note, I’m very proud of that bus I made.

Amazing Reviews: George R. R. Martin

By now we all know that Winter is Coming. We’ve followed the remaining members of the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, and Targaryens for years now on television but the entire world was built back in 1996 with George R. R. Martin’s masterpiece A Game of Thrones. While the name of the first novel went on to become the title of the popular show on HBO, the series of A Song of Ice and Fire has been a must-read on lists for decades. Not everyone appreciates the saga of Westeros. Let’s hear what they have to say about it all:

Total crap 1 Star on October 29, 2013

I could care less about portrayals of women and sex and rape and all that. If something is important to the story and organic to the character, I can run with almost anything. It’s the writing and the manipulation that have me passionately hating this book. The writing is abysmally terrible. Lots of telling, little showing, point of view issues. There is miles and miles and miles of description without end that contributes nothing to the story. The characters are all hateful. I feel like the author is manipulating the characters to doing terrible, horrible things to incite the big war or conflict or whatever is coming. Doesn’t feel real. I was hating the story before I got to the part where Ned killed Lady, but once that weakling killed an innocent animal for no reason, I was completely over it. I am baffled by the story’s popularity. Utterly baffled.

This reviewer is totally fine with rape and all that, but if you euthanize a giant wolf you’ve crossed the line mister!

Need a newish language, do you enjoy unpronounceable polysylabic names? 1 Star on May 1, 2013

Are you captivated by page after page of repetitious and adverbial sword slashing? In love with shallow–at best one dimensional, characters? If so, “Game of Thrones” is for you!! Even the predictable births in the final pages aren’t enough to tempt me towards volume two. Drek.

Marketing this book for the linguistic crowd is a new spin on the modern classic. And I like the shout-out to Shrek’s younger brother at the end.

NO 1 Star on April 24, 2013

I di dnot [sic] care for this book at all. Matter of face it put it down after 100 pages. If the author hasn’t caught me by the 100 pages–away it goes. It was depressing. There is enough depressing and terror items in our real life–I don’t need to read about it too.

OKAY, first off 100 pages is nearly one-half to one-third of most books. Unfortunately that covers less than one-eighth with A Game of Thrones. Also, what were your expectations of this book? The possibility of conflict is implied right off the bat with the words FIRE AND ICE in the title. Were you hoping for an uplifting, inspirational story from a book with a chair made out of swords on the cover?

So this last review is a little lengthy and actually refers to the quality of the eBook, not the actual writing of Mr. Martin. But keep reading – I promise it’s worth it!

I love this series. I have read books 1-4 over and over again. When I saw HBO was shooting Game of Thrones, I wanted to read it once more before that series begins next year, so I grabbed the Kindle version. The amount of typos in this version is completely unacceptable. It was obviously transcribed and never even perused before being uploaded. It makes Bantam look bad, makes Martin look bad, and makes me so mad that I am having a hard time enjoying the book. The types of mistakes range from the most basic: a completely wrong word such as “he” instead of “had” or a basic typo such as “sex” instead of “ser” to the unexplainable: italicizing a word and splitting it into hyphenated syllables for no apparent reason. It is averaging an error each page near the end, as if the transcriber had checked out completely by this point. Do yourself a favor, especially if this is your first time reading this amazing book. DO NOT BUY THE KINDLE VERSION!

As I said, the review was regarding typos in the ebook. And here is the payoff:

Commenter: Why do you let typos bother you so much? Do you feel superior when you discover them? Just food for thought from an avid reader.

Reviewer’s Response: No, I don’t feel superior when I find a typo. Pssh… Pfft… Pssh… If I spend money on a book, I would rather know for sure that a character’s name is Arnold and not Amold. What if I were to join a book club and I said, “I really like that character Amold!” And everyone looks at me like I’m the biggest idiot in the world, and then because I can’t see through the tears when I’m driving home, I hit your dog. Yeah. All because of a typo. Bam. Dead dog. Think about it.

Winter is Coming folks. Bring those dogs indoors!

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Wednesday’s Words: Woodrell

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

I read this book a few years ago and grew to really like Daniel Woodrell. I had been following the author for a little bit, especially after watching Winter’s Bone. I saw this book was just released and decided to give it a read.

It was great.

Woodrell has a way of writing that completely inserts you into the story but the exact way he does it unique. It’s with a combination of scenery, description, authentic dialogue, and little pieces of truth that resonate after you put the book down. After reading The Outlaw Album: Stories, I read Woe to Live On two years later.

This is a great author with a style and a story all his own. This is one that could easily become your favorite author quickly.

 

Wednesday’s Words: Fleming

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

As political races continue, I thought this quote was more than appropriate.

I read this novel several years ago and it remains one of my favorites. It was great enough to vault a new novelist to national fame and launch one of the most successful franchises in history. You can pick it up at a great price on Amazon for the Kindle.

Mid-Week Review | Descent: A Novel

This post is from a series where I review products during the week

I was looking for a good mystery. A page-turning, who-done-it and I thought this cover was pretty interesting. Here’s a tip for authors:

Don’t let your novel PEAK with the cover.

Descent: A Novel –The Rocky Mountains have cast their spell over the Courtlands, who are taking a family vacation before their daughter leaves for college. But when Caitlin and her younger brother, Sean, go out for an early morning run and only Sean returns, the mountains become as terrifying as they are majestic. 

Written with a precision that captures every emotion, every moment of fear, as each member of the family searches for answers, Descent races like an avalanche toward its heart-pounding conclusion.

Let me begin by saying I was very excited to read this book. It started out very well. It felt like stepping into a conversation that was already going, but one that wasn’t hard to figure out what was happening.

Cue the dramatic event a few chapters in and then you follow a family as it tries to pick up the pieces. Mom goes nuts. Dad continues a search for the daughter long after authorities have given up hope. Younger brother goes AWOL. Lifetime movie comparisons abound.

The main problem I had with this book was that the dialogue was like pulling teeth. For some reason that I’m sure has a concrete literary concept behind it, as the author is an actual creative writing professor, all the characters act like they’re deaf.

I wish I was kidding. Imagine pages of this:

“What do you think we should do?”

“What?”

“I said, what do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one calling the shots. What do you think we should do?”

“Well if I knew I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”

“What?”

To be clear, this is not an excerpt from the book, but it is EXACTLY how I felt when I was reading some of the dialogue. Maybe it was a device to emphasize how distracted the characters were in the midst of everything or to make the conversations feel more natural. For me it just didn’t work.

Then the book seems to have a problem with the story it’s trying to tell. We saw the characters as a family and we saw their individual stories of heartache and pain. Then [spoiler alert] we saw Caitlin. It was like the book couldn’t decide if it was going to be an action story of a heroine getting herself to safety or following the lives of a family in the aftermath of tragedy. Instead it tried to be both and neither one came away feeling very strong.

Now all that being said, this guy can write. The language and descriptions he gave are honestly reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. Like seriously, that good. The story kept my attention even when the plot seemed to get bogged down in tangent adventures that had no bearing on the story. The unraveling of the mystery of Caitlin’s disappearance was discovered in such a way that it hurt to think this was the best trail the author took to get us to the climax.  Think of solving a crime like Scooby-Doo, not Sherlock Holmes.

To the author’s credit he was trying to approach a beaten-like-a-dead-horse category of child-goes-missing, family-falls-apart genre and was able to do something unique.

It’s worth a read, especially if you can ever find it for under $5. Which is what I would have liked to have paid after I read it.

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Wednesday’s Words: Bronte

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

In a quest to read books that cost me nothing, I’ve come across many classics to read for free or for $0.99 on Amazon. I’m currently reading a book I never thought I would and, to be honest, I actually like it.

I tend to lean toward books where I can closely identify with the main character. An autobiography of a mid-1800’s governess is not someone I identity with easily, but her story is compelling enough to keep me turning the pages. In turning those pages I found this quote I thought I should share. Enjoy.

Check out Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte on Amazon for $0.99.

Wednesday’s Words: Steinbeck

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

Like most readers, I’ve been a fan of Steinbeck for years. I remember having to pick an author for a report in high school and I picked John Steinbeck  simply because I thought he looked cool.

Sometimes when my wife talks about wanting to visit California one day I feel like I don’t have to. After reading so many Steinbeck books I’m pretty sure it’s a place where everyone farms and wears overalls and has long eccentric stories of their lives. No need to visit.

The Pearl is one of my favorites and the first lines on the first page have always stuck with me.

 

Wednesday’s Words: Weir

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

I first read The Martian this summer while I was at the beach. I saw that it was sitting at the top of several lists on Amazon so I thought I’d give it a shot.

It was great! And what I thought was best of all, the author started out self-publishing.  All you need to do is write a book with witty banter that thoroughly breakdown space travel, potato farming, chemical formulas, thermodynamics, astrophysics, and all of NASA’s astronaut jargon and you’ve got a blockbuster movie in the making. See struggling writers, there hope for us yet.

 

Wednesday’s Words : St. Francis

This is a series where I’ll post a few of my favorite lines from books.

This is my first post in a while, so I’m easing back into it all. I read St. Francis of Assisi several years ago, simply because I wanted to read something by G.K. Chesterton and I had wanted to know more about St. Frances. I decided to (using a phrase I doubt St. Francis would care for) kill to birds with one stone.

It was a good book and for $0.99 you can’t really beat it. It’s a great quote and one that think about a lot when working for Scrap Mills signs & more. Visit our page there to check out some of my work as an “artist.”

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