Review: needs professional editing
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 25, 2014
2.5 starsThere will be some spoilers in this review.This detailed review is for readers like me who require more detail about a book before reading... and are all WTF over these 5-star reviews.Set in the UK, this is the story of Toni Vaughn, renowned writer, professor, and prodigy... an upper class innocent who is wrongly accused of a crime and gets life in prison. For some inexplicable reason, she is transferred from her first prison to the mysterious Thornbridge Prison [cue thunder and lightening] where the ultimate in criminally violent women are sent. Here every law is broken, all staff appear to be corrupt, and the inmates are endlessly starved, tortured, and abused.... because no one would pay attention to or report such a place, apparently (see the prison in Brubaker without the Brubaker).Now I had an impossible time believing such a place would exist in this day and age in the UK and I struggled with plausibility issues all through the book because of this. I'm not even sure why this book is even set in the UK. Granted, this American author did a better job than in Ice at depicting Scottish/English characters and actually used more than 2 "foreign" words to show the characters had a particular culture... but it's inconsistent. The best reason I can think why this is set abroad is to dupe culturally and geographically dumb dumb Americans in terms of how prison there might work... because, obviously, Thornbridge is situated right there on the corner of Narnia and Hogwarts!!! Everyone knows that.So four years later Toni is released from Thornbridge when information surfaces to prove her innocence. However, she is now a broken woman. This 6-foot tall beauty has become a frightened little mouse. Emaciated and paranoid and covered in scars, she is subject to extreme panic attacks, passing out, can't bare to be touched, is afraid of crowds, and is incapable of leaving her flat. You name it, she has it. Which is why it's so weird and implausible and downright miraculous that she is spared one particular abuse. You'll know what I mean when you come across it. Just one more thing here that insulted my logic.Once a lesbian player, Toni is now resigned to spending forever alone. In doom and gloom. Alone with her booze and cigs and coffee and books (I don't understand how these characters are always drinking while reading!... and they drink more than Gerri Hill's characters... more than the whole cast of Lost Girls!!!). Toni doesn't get ANY therapy at all and is completely enabled by her best friend who does all her shopping and such. What? No therapy? What kind of lesbian be here?? Toni is an educated prodigy and she won't do therapy? Really? Again. I can't believe it. Nope. At what point did she go from 6ft beauty to just plain big and dumb? I just couldn't enjoy the story with such blaring implausibilities.Despite being wildly unstable, anti-social, and a COMPLETE liability... 34 yr old Toni is hired to teach English at Calloway... a half-way house for recently released female cons. The staff is willing to accommodate all of her oddities because she has an impressive past and turns out to be the star teacher... so she's excused from meetings and such, runs around in homeless-looking baggy, threadbare clothes, and doesn't have to interact with anyone other than her students. The local nutcase no one minds. And esteemed teacher. And having served time herself, the ex-cons respect her more and deem her a favorite. We never actually get any proof of her teaching genius, but everyone does say she's great... so she must be.Two years after her release and working at Calloway, 32 yr old straight/Scottish woman Laura MacLeod steps into Calloway as a new administrator. And the seeds of change begin. This slow burn is the bulk of the story and the very best part of the story... watching what develops between these two and how was mostly very appealing. I can say there is maybe 15-20% of this book that I truly liked. Yet we are also watching Toni flip out and behave like a petulant child in every chapter. I could not sympathize with Toni at all and kind of hated her... partially because I didn't buy into what had happened to her. But mainly because she behaves like a spoiled little girl who doesn't want help and everyone close to her encourages it. I found her annoying!! Yeah, I'm no psychologist... but I love my lesfic and this is no way to make me love a lead. She was just plain irritating. I thought educated, upper class women who do time come out and make a pile writing their biographies-- maybe even get their own show on Netflix. This one comes out in diapers and in desperate need of warm milk. Over the top angst... all the excess boo hoo hooing just became tiresome for me. Call me insensitive, but I really just wanted Natural Selection to pop in and just swallow her up!I really did like Laura and have to say she was my favorite part of the whole story. Definitely the sexiest. Readers will like the idea that someone is out there who is willing to put up with your brand of crazy, no matter how deep and wide, lol. Romantic!! I only wish she was physically described more. As usual for lesfic, poor lead description. But about halfway into the novel, Toni's "madness" is way more toned down and the story finally became bearable for me... even quite interesting and, surprisingly, sexy. The sex scenes are rather hot. By the second half of the book, there is no shortage of them, lol. And this chunk of the book is my favorite part... not just the sex, but watching the leads grow intimately close. Instead of being obsessed with feral pain and PTSD, the romance finally gets some real attention. This I did like. Even Toni becomes less irritating.But about 65-70% of the way in, there grows a focus on Laura's family. It seems that once the leads got really close the author didn't know where to go... so she started giving us a whole storyline on Laura's family and the romance between her parents. Ack. WHO CARES?! I do not wanna know about their romance or sex life or undying love or how perfect Laura's family is (sound a bit like Ice??). Just when I was getting to like the book, it lost me. Even the constant sex scenes couldn't save it and grew tiresome along with everything else. On and on AND ON it went with Laura's family. Too much!! By then I could guess what else would come up and just waited for it to play out. Totally contrived last bit. By the end I was just glad it was over. There was no purpose at all for the last 10%. omg... this is just way too long and bored me in the end.This 600+ page indie story had the potential to be something very interesting and original... but, in my opinion, it is fatally marred by implausibilities, one irritating lead, and most definitely by the lack of professional editing involved in this book. I'm not talking grammar police as I can overlook that stuff if it's not in your face and out of control-- though the out of control repetition of characters spewing "Give me a reason...." 40 times in EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER!!! is something I think even her amateur beta readers could have addressed. Ack!! Talk about distracting and annoying!!No, I'm talking about the fact that this book coulda ended around 65-70% of the way in... and no one woulda missed that excess 200ish pages. At all. Personally, I found it so dull and contrived that it put me to sleep and I kept skimming. A good editor would have addressed that. Now I don't need my lesfic to stop at 220 pages... but this just meandered into BORING BORING BORING!!! I thought the ending of Ice also sucked and ruined the whole story, particularly the initial tone. I hate to think that slipping into some disjointed, sappy and contrived stuff in the end is looking to be her trademark... worse than the average romance because what comes before doesn't make you think she'd go there. This writer is better than that and really needs to work with a professional editor (she openly states she doesn't use one on her blog). One hopes the publishing company she recently got on board with will do more than produce her paperbacks. Because it pisses me off to see a potentially good story immortalized in rough draft mode.Unfortunately, between this writer's inability to accept her book may have major flaws by more experienced professionals (read her interviews)... and her 'poor indie me' pandering for reviews at the end of her stories... and her long-time fan base of fanfic readers who will support her with overinflated reviews even if she stays forever in fanfic quality... she will probably continue to sit fat and complacent and not bother with any professional editing... forever seeing no difference between a book that sells and a quality book that sells.__________________Update:  This review has been continuously spammed all through the month of June by posters claiming to work for the publishing industry who wish me to delete this review.  These have included threats, false accusations, blatant lies, manic rants, spamming/downvoting my other low star reviews, and posting lists of questions that purposely misinterpret what is written in my reviews. Any antagonistic posts will be deleted or reported to Amazon for deletion, without apology.  Ultimately, I feel this reflects poorly on the author and is a waste of time.  My review is still here, and I can't be bullied.  So don't bother.