Review: Buyer Beware
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2013
I downloaded this for free from Amazon, so I didn't really have the highest of hopes. I've found some wonderful books and authors, but I've also run into some nightmares. I know this review is going to sound harsh, but right now Amazon is showing this at a 4.8 out of 5 stars with 5 reviews. I don't know if it's an instance of paid reviews or family and friends. I'd like to think that family and friends would actually read the book and give the author some honest feedback, but maybe not. Either way, buyer beware. Actually, buyer? Click the "back" button and find something else.I made it 22% into this book and had to stop. It was either give up or throw my kindle at the wall and I love my kindle. Also, I'm going to mention this just once and never speak of it again. The hero is named Cave Maverick. CAVE MAVERICK! Ahem.Some thoughts:Put your thesaurus down, girl! Just because a word technically has the same meaning doesn't mean it fits. There were a lot of awkward sentences and the dialogue was horrendous. Also "queue" and "cue" are not interchangable. "Queue" was used several times in the 22% that I slogged through and it was never used correctly. Not the only word used incorrectly, but it was the most blatant. Other words that were used either incorrectly or awkwardly in the 22% I read while growling at my kindle: thwarted, sustained, supposition, incognito, perpetuated, revulsion, unceasingly, anguished, forlorn, penitence, diminutive, jubilation, venerate, observed, investigative, alluringly, intolerably, conveyed, revering, and literally.Was this book written by a teenager? The "heroine" (intentional quotes) has a business where she gets revenge on cheatiing men. Her career started in high school when she ran across a popular girl crying in the bathroom because she had seen her jock boyfriend holding hands and kissing another girl. Despite the fact that she wasn't at all friends with the girl, Kat (the "heroine") decides he deserves revenge and does this in the only logical way: she rigs his football helmet to spontaneously combust during a game where college scouts would be watching. Hilarious, right? She still thinks so. The fact that he had to be taken from the game by ambulance only heightens her joy. Is she a psychopath? I have no sympathy for cheaters, but I really think Kat needs some serious psychological help.Parts of this book made no sense whatsoever. I started highlighting words and sentences that were awkward or that were confusing and I had to stop because it was happening on every page.Some examples:"Not that she hated men, she had a couple on staff, but she despised them."Say what? Is the author's much-used thesaurus faulty? This might explain the "queue" debacle."Who kicks a dog in his most vulnerable state of defecating?"Who, indeed? Wait, maybe it wasn't a teenager who wrote this book. Maybe it was someone for whom English was not their first language. Maybe it's a Monty Python "My hovercraft is full of eels" type prank."As I walked in, she handed me my mail and started illuminating all of the messages she'd taken while I was out."Is the office so dark that her assistant has to shine a flashlight so that mail can be read?"She stood there blankly again for a moment, ruminating on his inquisition, I suppose."Again, technically correct, but this sentence makes my teeth grit.And one last one."...the hot pink, Feverish Flamingo paint-massacre unraveled before Sara's incandescent eyes. It took me a few minutes after it ended to realize she was crying ethereally."I was almost "crying ethereally" before I gave up. Seriously. It takes a lot for me to leave a book unfinished. I slodged through Why Romeo Hates Juliet (recap: I also hated her). I may have grumbled and growled, but I finished the darn thing. But this one defeated me. Quite an accomplishment.Okay, one more."He smiled devilishly at me, as though he was going to rape my face."No! Please don't... Cave freaking Maverick.