Secret agent plots, kidnapping, an aerial crash high atop a mountain.  Alas, that is not quite what I received.

When I received the book, the first thing I did was read the back cover.  Turns out the author is a mother/daughter team who were recently featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  “Great,” I thought, “This means that instead of getting published because of their writing prowess, they were published because someone figured they could cash in for fifteen minutes.”

Not wanting to judge something too harshly, too prematurely, I then glanced down at the genre.  Fiction/Christian/Suspense.  “Now I know it’s going to suck,” I thought.  No offense to Christians.  I’m a Christian myself and have read my fair share of Christian fiction, which is how I know that it is all trite and contrived.  Can a book have a Christian theme without trying to become a witnessing tool?  The world may never know.

I will be honest–I didn’t finish the book.  I can’t.  In fact, I’ve only read the first two chapters.  I hate not finishing a book, but I fear that to do so will be endangering myself mentally, emotionally, and physically.  In short, this book is terrible.  I don’t think the authors have ever been told the first rule of writing, which is “Show.  Don’t tell.”  It’s easy to tell the reader your character likes flying.  “She loved flying.”  See how easy that was?  It also makes for elementary and boring sentences, which makes your book elementary and boring.  [A love of flying, by the way, should not translate into the ability to fly small aircraft.  I love cats, but have no business acting as their doctor.]

And I do not want to read about characters who use God as a crutch or a magic pill.  Instead of letting the character experience real emotion or thought, everything is channeled into God–a quick prayer, a “God will protect me!”, etc.  Again, elementary and boring.
I was trying to think of a good target market for this book and thought, “Okay, maybe narrow-minded right-wingers who idolize Glenn Beck would like this book.”  Mr. W was quick to point out that narrow-minded right-wingers who idolize Glenn Beck probably wouldn’t read a book, so there went that idea.

It can only be destroyed.

Why, oh why, do companies like Barnes & Noble and Borders put customer reviews of fiction books on their sites?

Do not mistake me, I think customer reviews have the ability to serve a very useful purpose.  If you’re in the market for a new digital camera, it’s helpful to come across ten or twenty reviews of how a specific model fell apart after snapping two pictures.  That is handy information to have.  I do not, however, like customer reviews on less technical subjects, such as fiction.

Customer book reviews piss me off.  I don’t care what Joe in MiddleofNowhere, Montana thought about a book I’d like to read.  Screw him.  Most fiction reviewers fall in three opinion categories, none of which are helpful.

Opinion Category #1:
“OMG I LOVED THIS BOOK.  I was skeptical at first but it was so good and I want to read all their books right now.  If you know what’s good for you you will buy twenty-five of these books and give them to everyone you know and read them over and over and over again until you are dead.  I have never read a book better than this one right here and I don’t care what anyone else says.  OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Opinion Category #2:
“I felt that the pedantic syncopation encrypted within the archetypal stereotypes was trite.  If the author wanted to express more knowledge in this area, they should have utilized a more totalitarian viewpoint to undermine the basic societal underpinnings.  But keeping in mind that the theory of relativity did not come into play, the author could hardly have constructed more advanced plot techniques than those of Dostoyevsky.  I mean, really.”

Opinion Category #3:
“This book was absolutely terrible.  I was really looking forward to it after hearing that first review, but I got halfway through and something happened in the story that I didn’t like.  I tell you what, I threw the book across the room and refused to read another word.  This author is stupid and so is their book, and I don’t even need to read the second half of the book to be able to state that with absolute authority.  No one read this if you know what’s good for you!!!!!  HORRIBLE BOOK!!”

Tell me, do these help you when trying to decide to read a book or not?  The very idea that we have customer fiction reviews is ludicrous.  Books are such terribly subjective things.  What one person may love, another will surely hate.  Unless you know and respect the person recommending (or unrecommending) the book in question, their opinion is worthless.  The whole thing needs to be scrapped from the site.

I’m going to start leaving reviews like this:
“I was really surprised when the bad guy turned out to be [Character's Name].  I mean, after he helped them through the entire book?  To just turn like that?  And all because he was secretly the heroine’s father and was bitter that she never knew him?  That was totally his fault.”

And this one, for any and every Dan Brown book:
“You know the guy that is trying to be helpful to the main character and his foreign female sidekick?  Yeah, he’s the killer.”

I need to go and lie down before I hurt myself.