I Usually Don't Like to Point Out Bad Reviews, But...

Okay, what wannabe writer doesn't look at bad reviews from time to time? I've done it to the books in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I've laughed at half a dozen of them, others I just scratch my head...if you don't like them, why continue to read them? I gave up after the fourth book.

BTW, if you like the Wheel of Time series, more power to you. People like what they like, I've always said, and there is no thing called a guilty pleasure: Either it's a pleasure or it's not. There's no reason to feel guilty about something you like that someone else doesn't. (Like disco music. Say what you will, but I like a lot of it. So there. ;-))

Anyway, I like to check out reviews other than fantasy books. One of the sites I cruise through is Mrs. Giggles. The reviews she gives are almost always funny, rarely glowing, but decent reviews. Once in a while, there's a howler, which is what this post is about.

Mrs. Giggles gives her reviews numbers, with the lower the number, the worse the review. This one, for a book called Key to Conflict has to be the lowest I've ever seen there: 08. (ETA: I now see she has lower ones, and, yes, a couple of them are 01.) Gads, I thought, could it be that bad? I read a few reviews on Amazon, and, yup, seems to be almost universal that this one is a stinker. Although I'll reserve giving my own opinion as I haven't read it, almost everything points to the fact that the woman who wrote this was a wannabe...who used to work for a very well-known author.

My take on it: Just because you work (or used to work) for an author in some capacity doesn't necessarily mean you know how to write a story well.

Read the Mrs. Giggles review and then the Amazon ones. I might see if I can pick up a used copy somewhere so I can see for myself if it really is that bad.

Maybe.

~Nancy Beck