A Bad Review

I prefer writing reviews of books I like. That said, I find this book so insufferable that I have to vent. How'd something like this get published? How'd she snag an agent? Her query letter must've been fantabulous.

I picked this book up because it has a storyline that appeals to me. It involves ranching, illegal immigrants, love. I really liked the cover. (I'm a sucker for good packaging which is why my last shampoo was from L'Oreal. Lumenescent purple tube with salmon-colored cap. Pretty. It looked expensive.) I checked this book's reviews on Amazon dot com and most were good but only a few readers commented. I'm thinking now they were written by friends of the author, her agent, maybe someone at the publishing house.

It's a book where I have to read a sentence more than once in order to figure out what the author is saying. I can't follow. Always a fan of run-on sentences (I think mine are unfairly targeted by the writers in my writing group), hers are making me rethink my fondness. For instance this: "Also, she produced a very nice foal every three years or so for her owner Mary Friel, who loved her devotedly, as did Alice, to whom she was a regular source of income, a great trail mount, and an occasional schoolmistress in dressage." Huh? We're talking about a horse here but I did wonder if the owner wasn't the source of income. Maybe it's me. I prefer my writing sharp, to the point, like Willie Vlautin's or James Ellroy's.

And speaking of Ellroy, that man's a dialogue wizard. This author's dialogue SUCKS! I know bad dialogue; the dialogue in my book sucks, too, which is why I keep it to a minimum. Not only do conversations in this book feel forced and unreal but the characters are always calling each other terms of endearment such as sweet-hot, toots, kid, slick, my love.... You get the drift. I actually roll my eyes and murmur not another one! I'm writing them down. Sweet-hot!!

Sixty-five pages in and I may give up. I don't want to. I have very few books to read. I could go to the trailer park office where the gringo snowbirds leave their paperbacks but they're mostly Tom Clancys or Nora Roberts. I'm not that desperate for reading material. Yet.