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When the Review Tops the Book

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Some time ago one of our readers sent me a link to a brilliantly written book review, interestingly enough about a shockingly bad book.

The person who wrote the review is called Charles Moore. Here is a quote from it:

That pretty much sums up my experience reading Aaron Rayburn’s novel, THE SHADOW GOD. I took one for the team, so the rest of you would NEVER have to be subjected to this beast. I beg you, don’t let my selflessness be for nothing. Heed my warning. This is the worst book ever written.

The back cover copy reads “Craig Johnson had two best friends, two caring parents, a hot girlfriend, and a nice truck–not bad for a twenty-year-old.” Already we’re in trouble. The author photo shows Rayburn in all his mid-20s virginal glory. Manson contacts, a black cap turned backwards with a red 666 monogrammed on it, he’s posing next to what looks like a rubber demon. His bio includes the line “He also says that he owes a great deal of gratitude to the Devil . . . for filling his mind with such horrific images.”

If this book is the most horrific thing the devil can come up, I think humanity is safe from the threat of hell.

So if you want laugh a bit, here is the permalink. All wannabe writers take notice of what might come after you publish your book!

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4 thoughts on “When the Review Tops the Book”

  1. Funny! That review will probably send sales through the roof.

    The fact that anyone can pay to have a book published means that some really dreadful things find their way into print. The book reviewed here was published by AuthorHouse, a vanity press: the author paid to have the book published. In the world of serious novelists, the publisher pays the author.

  2. Thanks for the link – the review is really hilarious!

    Actually, reviewing is always easier than writing a book: the author should have enough… not talent or even basic grammar knowledge, but courage. And the worse a book is – the more courage one need to publish it 🙂

  3. Oh, goodness! I read an excerpt from this book and the reviewer isn’t kidding- about anything. Useless sentences, inconsistencies too obvious to ignore, and all the spelling errors. How could someone possibly publish something like this without… you know,… reading it? Surely an editor would have caught ‘something’, right?

    I mean, alright, I might already be a tiny bit biased because this isn’t the sort of thing I’d read in the first place but still, it really is horrible.

    Side note: I looked up the listed publish. AuthorHouse- it’s self published. That certainly explains something. A note for anyone reading this, I know people who’d used AuthorHouse and not a one of them says they’re reputable. They don’t even print the books themselves and to someone unskilled in translating some of the nonsense they put into fine print it can be quite a loss.

  4. I’m actually kind of glad that so many books of questionable value are getting published these days. It keeps me supplied with things to write about.

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