bookshelves of doom

No Star for You!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon or GoodReads review of a much-lauded title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

[Title], by [Author], is horrible. [Main character] is a young girl who lives in a small town. [Main character] wants to take ballet, but she can't do fifth position. [Main character] can't do anything with her feet, so her parents tell her to do something with her hands, "like art". They tell her to pick something easy. So [Main character] tries to draw, but she doesn't like what she makes. [Main character] is a sad character, because she can't do anthing right. [Title] is a bad book, because it's too sad. An historical fiction book might be a better choice.

And here's another one (from GoodReads):

I hated this book [Main character] is such a moan. I felt every time she did something wrong she nrver apolgised and the issue waS always left alone. [Main character] waas very rude to her parent and was very minulive with her little brother so basicaly this book is horrible and boring so mic I didn't even finish it.

Answer here!

No star for you!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

Only two words: Children's book.I decided to read the book after it got a positive review from Lebron James but as you may already know he did not go to college. Can't believe i spend $5 on this crap, so prepare to be disappointed.

As that one didn't include any details, here's another one about the same book:

WOW!!! With all of the movie hubb-bubb I figured I better look into reading this.
No way, Jose!! Didn't like it from about page 20, when the whole premise of the book
is laid out. The whole kids-killing-kids aspect of it was distasteful and disturbing. The
whole ""we're a happy in-love couple trapped in these "games" ". The whole wolf-pack at the
end was over-the-top, bad enough to kill these kids once, but, twice???
I could go on, , ,but, , ,this book is much to do about nothing!!!

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No Star for You!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

[Title] is a friendship/mystery novel. [Protagonist] and [Title Character] have been friends since grade school and he tells the story about the mystery of [Title Character] and her family. [Protagonist] eventually starts to lose weight from joining the swim team in high school but [Title Character] gets self conscious about herself and is afraid [Protagonist] wont talk to her anymore. To prove to [Title Character] that he isn't one of the jocks, he eats extra helpings of food to stay fat for [Title Character].

I think the author could of talked about different stories throughout the book. He would drag on and on about one subject that would be absolutely boring if they didn't know or take interest in that topic. Most people wouldn't.

This novel is a little confusing at first because it goes from past to present all the time. I read this book with my literature circle and everyone agreed that the book wasn't interesting to read. In my opinion, it went real slow and was boring. It was hard to keep reading the book when I had too. If you were looking for real friendship romance and mystery books, I'd defiantly think you should try out a different book. The real interesting parts of the story were way at the very end. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. No offence to the rest of the people on the net that read the book and thought it was fabulous.

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No Star for You!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

This book is written in the first-person, present tense which I admit automatically put me off this book. The main character seems to alternate between being psychic and completely ignorant as sometimes she can tell what other characters are thinking, but the rest of the time is just so unbelievably ignorant of the world around her.

Writing in the first person is difficult and in my opinion the author is not up to the task. As a reader I know nothing of the world that [heroine] lives in and the author isn't helping me out.

Besides the, in my opinion, bad writing, I also have a problem with the way the main character is portrayed. All I can think is that the author must really hate fat people because it seems that all [heroine] thinks about is alternately how fat and weak she is, and about food. The author can't be bothered to explain the world around [heroine], but she sure can describe food.

Just a side note, the constant mention of god and religion in this story irked me. It may not bother other people, but for anyone who finds this annoying, I just thought I should mention it.

I would recommend that anyone looking for a strong female protagonist in a fantasy fantasy setting to skip this one.

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No Star for You!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

I read a portion of this and I could not get past the 'Mary-Sue'ness of it all. It is complete with tragic, royal back-story, a perfect, flawless, spoiled heroine who can do no wrong, placed with an epic destiny that she must accomplish, though she is completely unfit for it. Don't get me wrong, those elements and plot devices can be well played under the right circumstances. This was not.
When it takes four complete pages to get to actual dialogue because the author is describing how a headache feels after you cry and how sad/pitiful (emotionally speaking) the heroine feels. There is a Problem. There are so many unnecessary words, too much description on things that have and serve no purpose, at all in the story.
I often thought Tolkien overdid his descriptions at times. Boy, was I proven wrong when I picked this up. Tolkien has nothing, NOTHING on [Author]'s verbal diarrhea. She puts in absolutely the most pointless (not useless, just unproductive and trivial) words to do nothing more than murder trees, use up printer ink, and waste hard drive space. I saw the Newbary award, afterward and thought 'How in the name of all things sacred did it make it past the editor's desk?' This is by far the worst thing I've ever read, and I'm quite ashamed to say I was considering spending money on this writing. Don't waste your time on this. Twilight was better written and edited.

Click on through for the answer!

No Star for You!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

According to my Kindle, I'm about 5% of the way through the book. I need someone to tell me if the style, the content, the dialogue, hell, if pretty much anything improves and starts to approach that which would normally pass as engaging composition. Because I'm just about to give up. I dove into this book without knowing anything about it, other than it is WWII historical fiction. After reading the first few pages I came to learn that a twelve year old girl has been captured by the Nazi's and is being subjected to the worst brutality. Those beasts are sharpening pencils in her general direction, causing painful pencil shavings to irritate her eyes! Forget waterboarding, these Nazi's are serious. They will take your knickers away!

Is it just the first couple of chapters that are like this? Does she start acting like an adult at some point? Does she ever stop feeling sorry for herself? At what point do you get over that hump of wishing she would just stop whinging and start to write an entry in her diary that reads like the words of a strong woman in a difficult situation instead of an agony letter to Teen Beat?

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No Star for You!

As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

[Title], by [author] is a book that does not deserve its Newberry. The story has a terrible plot, involving a girl named [heroine] who has a drunken father who is looking for a husband for her. She has some close calls and a big one with suitors, but is repetitive and sulky about her life. The entire story is written in diary form about her life, and it seems like something is going to happen, but nothing really does. [Heroine] really does not enjoy her life. She is mad that suitors are coming and just wants to be free. She sometimes drives you to insanity with her complaining. This book does not deserve its popularity, and it is not written in a suitable way. It is written with only one point of view [Heroine]'s so if your favorite character is not [Heroine] you are IN DEEP DO DO. You just never get someone else's opinion. The book only takes sides with the main character in arguments so it leaves you hanging. What does her father think? To bad, you will never know.

There is one positive about this book. The setting takes place in Briton in the Middle Ages on a farm. It was an exciting place, but in this book nothing happens. The topic of the book stays the same the whole time, so you only have to read to page 60 to know what happens, because in children's' books they all turn out the same. Go ahead and read the book if you feel like it, but remember if you don't like it I said dont read it.

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