What’s the point of this?
What was the point of keeping his name a secret? He didn’t ask anybody to protect him.
I asked first.
I gave you the answer.
I don’t understand it. Why link to his site? Why try to instigate a campaign of abuse and mockery at some kid who wrote a really shitty book? How is that helpful? What good does it do you or anyone else? What’s the point of it?
I’m not trying to instigate anything, I just thought it was obnoxious to post a scathing review of his book and then withhold the information about the author in some kind of misguided and patronizing attempt to shield him. She’s the one who mocked his book. If he ever reads this thread (which is highly unlikely), he’s not going to be less hurt by her review because she didn’t name him.
By the way, she provided all the information I needed to find him in her own posts. If I can do it, so can anyone else. Anyone who would be curious enough would not need my post to find him. I have no intention or desire to foster “abuse” or “mockery.” I just think that if Sigmagirl is going to trash the kid’s book, she should have the decency to name him.
Other books named the title and author in the posts. Hell, I almost didn’t link to Shayla Black’s book because I didn’t want people to get curious and actually buy the thing–god knows she doesn’t need any further encouragement. Why shouldn’t the guy’s book and name be listed like everybody else’s? It’s hardly going to encourage a campaign of mockery and abuse against the guy–most of us are sane adults here. If anything, it might result in a few sales because people are usually curious and bad reviews tend to pique interest. Besides that, Diogenes is right. If you’re going to publish a book, you have got to take the bad with the good. Writing a bad review (or a mocking review) isn’t abusive.
I’m back briefly to say - sorry, I forgot to look for Captive Bride last night. Maybe I’ll do better tonight!
And by God, if she chooses not to, then you’ll do it for her. :rolleyes: Just so we’re clear, I also sometimes criticize a product or action or behavior while trying to avoid naming the person whose credit or blame it is, because I too feel like it’s my perogative to choose the parameters of my own unkindness. If you ever feel the need to draw those lines in for me, do me a favor and restrain yourself.
She intentionally tried to avoid making her criticism explicitly personal, and she was pretty clear about that being her wish. You overrode that, and for what? “Decency” is a pretty loaded word to use in what is really a fairly minor point, but since you brought it up – any lack of decency here has not been on her part.
What did I do that was indecent? At most I drove a few hits to his website. This was not her student or private friend. This writer did not ask for anonymity and did not ask for anybody’s protection. I think that if people are going to discuss his book, he should at least get his name credited. There’s no such thing as bad publicity and it’s not like he wouldn’t know who Sigma was talking about in the extremely unlikely event that he would have ever read this thread anyway.
ETA: how would criticizing this writer be any more “personal” than criticizing any other writer? If the latest Steven King novel sucks, should all reviewer refrain from mentioning his name so as not to “make it personal,” and keep from hurting his feelings?
What did SHE do that was indecent? YOU’RE the one who brought up the pretty loaded concept. How is she indecent to avoid naming the victim of her criticism, but you aren’t when you override her objections and post it anyway?
SHE decided not to name him. That was HER decision. Just like if I post about how I saw the shittiest high school performance of Grease ever, especially the girl who played Sandy, who could not sing, I would not thank you to post behind me saying “She’s talking about the Smallville High production, Smallville, USA and Sandy is played by Gertrude Smith, class of '10. Here’s Trudy’s Facebook page.”
Well then, gosh, why don’t you just substitute your judgment for hers, then? Because everyone has to agree with you that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and everyone must agree with you that having people name your book as one of the worst EVAR is a “credit” to you. And HE certainly would have recognized his own book, had he stumbled across this thread, but maybe it would have been some small comfort to him to know that no one else would.
This guy isn’t Steven King. SigmaGirl already said “Why should he be protected? Because he needs constructive criticism, and this thread is not about constructive criticism. He needs time and experience, neither of which he has, because he’s a kid. He may improve. The other people whose works have been ridiculed here are full-time writers whose books are found in drugstores and supermarkets. This is an enterprising, if unenlightened, young man who doesn’t have a knack for writing.”
She would have preferred the subject of her post to be anonymous, or she would have named him herself. You decided to post his name, and she now regrets having said anything in the first place. That was your perogative of course, but it’s pretty rich to see you act as if you’ve done some inherently better or positive thing, as if you are correcting her “indecency” or giving the guy “credit”, because that’s crap. All you did was make another poster regret participating in the conversation. Well done you.
I am pleased to say that I have never read a book in this genre.
This thread was a lot of fun until this whole sidetrack cropped up. Sigmagirl, I’m sorry that you feel you did an unkind thing. You participated in the spirit of this thread, which was to poke some fun at ridiculous plotting and/or writing by authors who should know better.
Can we get back to doing that now? Pretty please?
I love those. I always thought the “Cloudland” pieces were some of his his best.
There’s a great line that goes something like “There was a boyo in the dunes that was destined to put a crimp in Diana’s plans. To phrase it very delicately indeed.”
Guys – could any further debate over revealing that guys identity go into a different thread? In the Pit, if necessary.
And then hopefully what was a really entertaining thread might revive.
Yeah, sorry. My bad. I still think what DtC was weird, but I won’t comment on it any more in this thread.
Ok, Back to bad romance novels.
Not Quite A Bride by Kristen Sawyer.
Which, technically, I think is Chick Lit, but it’s just so mock-worthy it belongs in this thread. And in this case, I’m providing the name of the book and the author because it isn’t unenjoyable to read, it’s just so mock-worthy.
Melissa ( I think) is the narrator. She’s depressed because she’s unmarried, soooo single, soooo old, and her little sister (already married) is pregnant. Oh, and her best guy friend is engaged to this hideous woman who won’t let him spend time with Melissa.
So what does Melissa do? She hires a guy to pretend to be her fiance, so that she can have the fun of all the wedding planning, the showers, etc. get all the attention, and MOST importantly, stage a wedding before she turns 30.
(This point pissed me off enormously. I’m 33, and while I don’t exactly have a ring on my finger or a lot of prospects lined up on my doorstep, I’m still hopeful that I’ll meet Mr. Right-for-me in time to have all the babies I want (2). I like reading romances that reinforce the idea that this will happen when I least expect it. I can live with historical romances where a bride of 25 is past her prime. I hate contemporary characters under 30 who think life ends at 30).
So anyway, the guy Melissa hires is gay and falls in love with her brother (suprise! he’s gay, too!) Wedding planning isn’t as fun as she thinks it should be, and the stress of planning a fake wedding knowing that everyone thinks the guy she hired is wonderful builds. Oh, and everything is more expensive than she thought it would be.
But, in the end, the Staged Wedding is held, Melissa and several others object to the wedding, Melissa’s best guy friend has broken off with hideous woman, and tells Melissa he’s in love with her.
And 6 months or a year later, Melissa and Best Guy Friend get married in the perfect wedding–which does not resemble the Staged Wedding in the slightest–but the part which pissed me off was that there was aparently no lingering resentment about being asked to participate in showers for both Staged Wedding and Perfect Wedding.
And there’s a Not Quite a Mom by the same author which is at least as mock-worthy.
Elizabeth (never Lizzie) is dating Dan. Boring, Staid, Respectable Dan who earns lots of money, and has really boring sex with Elizabeth. And then one day, something happens.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s best friend from high school dies in a fatal car accident along with her husband. Leaving Tiffany, her teen age daughter. According to the will, Elizabeth is Tiffany’s guardian. Oh, the lawyer in charge of the guardianship thing? Buck–who took Elizabeth to prom.
But Dan doesn’t want children–babies or unknown teens-- and has finally proposed. Goofy hijinks ensue, with Dan dumping Elizabeth as soon as he finds out about Tiffany.
More goofy hijinks ensue because Elizabeth will do anything to get Dan back–including pretend to be a Harvard Grad and plan a Bachelor Auction where she will bid on Dan. Except Dan sees her and points out that Elizabeth, her “date” Buck, and her best friend are all NOT Harvard Grads. They leave.
Eventually, Dan and Elizabeth do get back together–just long enough for her to figure out what a self-absorbed slimeball he’s always been. So she dumps him, and pursues Buck, who is eager to be caught.
(Buck’s a nice guy. It just bugs me a little that he’s so willing to get involved with a woman who has just been frantically pursuing a total slimeball idiot, and that Lizzie (as she agrees to be called) gets such total and complete happiness so swiftly. Seriously, she and Buck have sex once, I think before the Elizabeth and Dan get back together for a weekend bit, and Lizzie gets pregnant, so Buck moves in with her a week or two after having sex with her, and marries her 2 or 3 months later, totally happy about the baby on the way, and 3 months later Lizzie’s getting a better job ( I left the stupid job hijinks out of the summary) and they are house hunting, and all the problems caused by instant parenthood to a teen have been smoothed out. )
With your kind permission, this is SO going into my sig line.
God, these sound like plots for chick flicks. So contrived, so hackneyed, so predictable, so stupid, so valueless. That fake wedding plot, especially, sounds exactly like something that would get made made into a movie starring Debra Messing and Rupert Everett and would be a huge hit.
I dunno…maybe plotting is the wrong aspect to look at for romances. After all, they pretty much have to have the same basic plot:
Boy meets girl. It’s immediately obvious to the reader that they’re meant for each other, but that would make for a short, boring book, so conflicts and obstacles have to be manufactured to delay the inevitable for 200 or so pages. Then, boom! The scales fall from their eyes, they fall into each others arms, the end.
Would any romance, even an acknowledged masterpiece, look really stupid in summary form?
Pride and Prejudice. Would you LOOK at the coincidences in that? Wickham not only ‘ruins’ the heroine’s youngest sister, but he also nearly ruined the hero’s sister – what are the odds on that? Or the heroine tours the hero’s estate only because she’s SURE he won’t be there…and then guess who rides up?
And Jane’s romance…totally disrupted because the hero tells the secondary hero that the girl he’s interested in doesn’t seem all that in love with him? What kind of wuss wouldn’t even talk with the girl before dropping her entirely?
And the heroine turns down a ridiculous suitor, who immediately marries her best friend?
Wouldn’t we scoff at those turns of event in a contemporary romance?
The difference, of course, is that Austen wrote like a genius, and the run-of-the-mill romance writer, not so much.