Review: Just Insufferable
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2012
Maybe if I were stranded on a deserted island with nothing else to do. . .  .I've been delaying posting this review because I had felt badly for having to give low marks to a new author.  But i have been convinced that i should share my opinion with others who are considering this book, so they don't fall into the same trap that i did.  I admit it:  I was taken in by several glowing recommendations on discussion threads that this book would be similar to some of my favorites. I was originally very skeptical, but decided I'd give it a try, despite the negative impression the sample had left with me.  I wish I'd stuck to my gut and ignored this book.The writing is an odd juxtaposition of overwrought, pedantic prose and completely jarring typos/grammatical errors/missing words!!!!! I feel like I'm playing Madlibs trying to read this crazy story because there are so many missing words. I don't mean just occasionally, but throughout the book!  Ironically there are also NUMEROUS times that "of" has been added for no particular reason. Sometimes it's in place of "have" (as in, "I should of .  . . ")  but frequently there's no reason for the added "of" whatsoever. I could accept this if it were limited to dialogue - i'd assume it was an attempt at an American dialect - but it also occurs in the narrative. In addition, there is a lack of proper punctuation, and the book is rife with incorrect word usage ("your" instead of "you're", "to" instead of "too", etc.).I have unfortunately become accustomed to the poor English and editing found in self-published novels, but i found these mistakes to be so prevalent that they disrupted my enjoyment of the story. When I have to stop and figure out what the author is trying to say. . . .  That's more work than the reader should be required to do for any book, much less one that cost $6.00. (and I'm serious - there were many, many  times when I had to stop and re-read the sentence or paragraph, correcting it in my mind to understand what the heck the author meant.).In addition to these endemic errors, there are also some particularly (unintentionally) funny mistakes in word choice that stuck in my mind beyond the horrendous editing/writing:Throughout the book (including the title of a chapter, no less), everyone is extremely pissed about beavers or something. At least, that's what I assume since they're constantly cursing by saying, "Dam!".  At one point, the heroine thinks, "Dam!  Dam!  Dam!". Unless she's site-seeing at Hoover Dam, I'm not sure what she was so excited about.  This was not a mere typo - it happened over and over and over and over and . . .  I think the correct spelling was used once in the entire (very long) book.  While I understood what they meant, this was jarring to the flow of the book.  Especially because I couldn't help but roll my eyes each time.Early on the book describes how the heroine's secretary slept with the hero, so the heroine had her "fried!". Personally I thought that killing the secretary was a tad severe. Couldn't the heroine have just had her dismissed from her job???The hero and heroine are attorneys at the same firm, but I guess the hero moonlighted on the side as a dress designer or something, in addition to be the champion at sexual gymnastics.  The heroine's mother is a madam (with a stable of prostitutes), and at least twice, the book mentions that the hero was a former costumer of hers. I was wondering why the hero was designing outfits for the prostitutes before I realized that he was a former customer!As a final example of the mistakes that caused me to laugh, not cry:  The hero and heroine are on a beach in Hawaii looking out over the water when she exclaims, "It's a hunchback!" as she jumps up and down excitedly. Wow. The heroine is kind of a b!tch, isn't she? I mean, is she making fun of Quasimodo? The author really needs to look up the names of whale species . . .Okay. Even if I discount the myriad mistakes and the writing style, there is still the plot. I didn't like the h. She has been a practicing attorney for THREE years and thinks she deserves to make partner? Over the founder's son who has been practicing much longer and is, in fact, (man-wh0re ways aside) an excellent attorney? What world is she from??? I don't care what kind of idiot savant she is, that's just insane. And that is typical of her arrogant and entitled personality.  Her temper tantrums are grating - and that is the basis for key developments in the plot.  While her tantrums are eventually shortened over course of the book,her initial reactions still remain petty and short-sighted.  It was hard to get too attached or root for her HEA.The H is no better. He is a total slut. He promised his father that he wouldn't have sex at work anymore. . . . And then he does -or at least tries - with one of his random sex bunnies. And then makes a big deal about not doing it with the h- until he does.  (He distinguishes between actual intercourse with the h and just getting her off at the office, like that really matters?!!). And he is such a slut!  Yuck.  He sleeps with random women at the drop of a hat at the beginning of the book.  He has sex partners waiting for him  around every corner.  He goes for coffee and stops to enjoy a quick bang.  They show up at his office naked, except for a trench coat, so he can have them on his desk.  It's all meaningless to him - he barely remembers their names, and he leaves their beds immediately.  While he supposedly learns to change because of how he feels about the heroine, he is so disgusting that I couldn't even want him to change and end up in a HEA.  And does he?  Until the very last moment, he's insisting that the h be monogamous but he wants to be free to sleep around. It's only until the h insists that he also be monogamous that he agrees. I'm still looking for the heart-warming scene that other posters raved about when he realizes that he only wants her. I must have blinked and missed it.And maybe it is just me, but I found the sex scenes to be boring. And there were a lot of them to get through.  Nothing seemed that new or original.  Just a lot of sex.There were many other characters in the book who play crucial roles in the development of the plot, the back story, and critical events along the way.  But I couldn't tell you much about them, because they were never fully fleshed out as complete people.  They were sketched lightly, and they traipse in and out of the story to deliver their message and depart. This seems done in part to heighten the "mystery" of who the "bad guy" is, but it's a sham convention because we never know enough about them to care or even consider who's behind anything.And the suspense/mystery? True mystery authors would ban this book - it commits one of the forbidden crimes of mystery writing: the surprise villain where all evidence of the suspect's guilt is hidden until the very end.That said, yes, the story has one of my favorite plots:  The hero falls in (lust?) and becomes possessive and jealous of the heroine. But how this is portrayed is not exactly heart-warming.  He doesn't want the heroine talking to a sad dweeb of a man at work.  And repeat.  It's time to make the hero jealous, so trot out the dweeb.  But there is no added dimension or complexity.  He also suddenly finds that he no longer wants to share his sex partner (the h) at the sex parties he takes her to, and everyone is surprised b/c he'd been such a man-wh0re previously.  He's so possessive he won't share.  Uh, yay???  That's the LEAST he could feel!!!  I guess I also didn't find this aspect of the book very fulfilling, however, because i felt that I was told, not shown.In short (ha!), my conclusion is that it's only worth $6.00 because it was over 14,000 locations long, and if you were stuck on a deserted island, it would give you something to do.  It could even distract you from your plight as you spend your time editing it  . . .