Spellbound

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by Patricia Simpson
Lucky Publishing 2009

Method of selection: Torched the library. This was the only book to survive.

First sentence: “David!” Tara clutched the armrest of the Jaguar sedan as they roared into oncoming traffic outside Glasgow Airport.

Note on cover: A Time-Travel Romance from Award-Winning Author Patricia Simpson
Non-committal Puff quote: “Patricia Simpson is a master at keeping suspense going on a multitude of levels.” —Romantic Times.
Alternate titles: Templar Nights, The Sword and the Bone

I don’t know what award Patricia Simpson won, probably something unrelated to writing, but I do know that time-travel romance is one of the sixty fastest-growing sub-sub-genres in fiction today, just behind transexual western fanfiction, but still ahead of slam steampunk. I found this book via a blind pull, and no doubt it is shitty, but it’s charmingly shitty. It wins you over with its shittiness. Here’s part of the synopsis:

A week before her wedding in Scotland, Tara Lewis stumbles upon a hidden tomb and accidentally awakens a spellbound knight…She doesn’t believe in the spirit world — or true love for that matter — until the touch of the handsome knight awakens her troubled heart.

This book begins in the way all time-travel romances do. Two people discuss an upcoming wedding (see Bless the Bride for more on this topic), and a lonesome time-traveler forces the protagonist to chose between her douchebag fiancé and the handsome and chivalrous Templar Knight/Starfleet Commander/Jesus Christ. Eventually, she fucks the time-traveler, who isn’t familiar with the 21st century concepts of “condoms” or “safe words”, a space-time paradox is created as she is impregnated, and the universe is destroyed.

Spellbound is unquestionably a shitty book, but it’s shitty the way a small child is shitty. You know he’s a loser, and he’s ugly and doesn’t have parents and wets the bed, but you just can’t bring yourself to hate him even though you really want to.

Other reviews: Not found

(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through one of the Amazon or Alibris links on this site.)

Toward the End of Time

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by John Updike
Alfred A. Knopf (Random House) 1997

First sentence: First snow: it came this year late in November.

A great read if: you live in the city and fucking hate yourself
Method of selection: Wanted to trash John Updike

I’m so glad John Updike is dead, because now we don’t have to keep pretending we like him. And I’m going to stop pretending by actually liking this. I was convinced this would be shitty. Usually a book that starts by describing freshly fallen snow is going nowhere, and the mini-story of the mystical FedEx envelope that appears, mystically, at the door only furthered my shitty resolve. But as it so happens, on the morning I pulled this from the shelf I lived in the city and fucking hated myself, so it’s a great read. Updike gives us gems like, “Plastic shovels are an improvement — can you believe it? The world does not only get worse.” And this (from page four, which I made it to), “By daylight she pumps me full of vitamins and advice as if to prolong my life but I know her dreams’ truth: she wants me and the deer both dead.”

Things get even more exciting when you check the summary on the front flap: “A recent war between the United States and China has thinned the population and brought social chaos. The dollar has been locally replaced by Massachusetts scrip; instead of taxes, one pays protection money to competing racketeers.” This sounds like a conservative Republican’s wet dream. There was, however, nothing about this plotline in the first three pages, and I wonder if the publisher mixed John Updike up with Jon Updam, the famous author of such post-apocalyptic fiction as Regnar’s Fortress and The Last Dairy Producer.

The point is, I would take this one home, and did. Score one for the New York Times book reviewers, eight hundred million billion for shitty books.

Other reviews: Bookmunch, Damian Kelleher

(Support this site by purchasing this definitely not shitty book through one of the links below.)

A House of Secrets

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by Patti Davis
Birch Lane Press 1991

Method of selection: Set a cow loose in the library. This was the book she was munching on when they shot her.

First sentence: I am the child of storytellers.

Worst sentence: …I’ve seen questions scurrying away, frightened by the light.
Worser sentence: Reaching my arm up at just the right moment, I could graze the edge of the moon; velvety and pale, it would leave a fine dust on my fingertips.
Word I hate in that sentence more than any: velvety

Do you know who Patti Davis is? I didn’t. She isn’t the Patti Davis named Patti Smith, which is what I thought at first. But it turns out I’ve seen her naked, which is probably why this is such a shitty book. She was too busy getting naked to learn to write.

Patti Davis is Ronald Reagan’s daughter, and notorious in the family for being a liberal, and something of a libertine. She appeared in Playboy in 1994, in all her Mr. Universe-armed glory. I’m not sure why she thought she could write a novel, but people do crazy things on steroids.

The talking points on the front flap say this is a book about a woman “coming to terms”. This is the first warning that this is a shitty book. Unless she turns out to be coming to terms with her gigantic penis, or coming to terms with her insane desire to kill people and fuck their corpses, you can be sure this book isn’t going to be very interesting.

The second is how every sentence is written out to be a big deal, such as:

My father waited until my mother’s shape no longer filled the doorway, until the sound of her footsteps had disappeared.

You know what works even better? “Mom left.” Even better than that is to not write anything, and go to bed. I really don’t care that the woman’s parents are really Ronald and Nancy Reagan. They’re old and they’re dead. But I suppose they were still alive in 1991, sorta. It should be pointed out that this book is very, very out of print. So now it’s collectible!

(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through one of the links below.)

Bless the Bride

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by Rhys Bowen
Minotaur 2011

First sentence:
“I think I may be in a spot of trouble,” I said.
Worst sentence: I had had my fill of danger and was ready to admit that had I been a cat, I would have used at least eight of my nine lives.
Number of people murdered in the first three pages of this mystery novel: 50, by me, to overcome the boredom brought on by this book.
Number of people murdered in the first three pages of the actual story of this mystery novel, not by me: 0. But in my imagination, 4, including the flower girl, who was murdered, processed, and canned.

If I ever teach a class on fiction writing, I will teach a lesson on the best way to kill your reader from eyestrain as he searches vainly for a story. Example A will be the first three pages of this book, in which the protagonist, Molly Murphy, sits and sews wedding garments for her wedding while she talks to her stepmother-to-be, who is also sewing, about the coming wedding.

Being that this is supposed to be a mystery, I waited and waited through three entire pages for the stepmother to pull out a switchblade, or for Javier, the long-lost Argentine cousin to show up with a coded message, or even just a dead body to fall from the sky (mysteriously). Maybe I read too many Hardy Boys books growing up (where dead bodies fall from the sky on almost every page–I’m serious, go back and read them. You won’t believe this shit.) but I simply didn’t feel the least bit compelled to keep reading.

I picked up a few things, which wasn’t easy to do because my eyes kept trying to jump out of my face and run for help: Molly Murphy is a Manhattan detective with a quick temper (she said so), her brothers are freedom fighters in Ireland, and that’s all I could figure out. Perhaps had I read the other nine novels in this series, I would find this scene funny. Instead I just found it sad. So sad that I called the suicide helpline to complain. They recommended I try Wicked Prey, which only made things worse.

Other reviews: Mystery Maven, Judith Starkston, Buried By Books

(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through the links below.)

Chasing Fire

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by Nora Roberts
GP Putnam Sons (Penguin) 2011

First sentence:
Caught in the crosshairs of wind above the Bitterroots, the jump ship fought to find its stream.

Worst sentence: Nerves. She could all but feel them riding along his skin.
Biggest surprise: not coming down with terminal leukemia while reading this

Let’s get a few things straight:
1. I have never read a romance novel.
2. I’m not sure why, because this was not shitty.
3. “Chasing Fire” is a double-entendre, for firefighters on one hand, and ill-advised unprotected coworker sex on the other. Unexpected pregnancy and HPV may result, but I only read three pages so I don’t know for sure.

I knew Nora Roberts was a supermarket paperback writer, but I did not know she was a romance author when I picked this off the shelf. It purported to be about firejumpers (firefighters who parachute into wildfires), but it was only from doing a little research that I discovered this is supposed to be a romance.

This is not a literary work, it’s a soap opera, but I’ll be damned to call it shitty. Believe me I’m as shocked as you. Nora Roberts has 209 novels to her name (wait…..210……211), and being a romance writer, and with a name in such a pointy font, she is clearly marketed entirely to women. Yet I turned to page four without hesitation. I expected it to be hacky and overdone, but with only a few exceptions, it appears to be good storytelling, about a small-town firejumping girl in love with a boyish firejumping guy. The dialogue is believable and the characters presumably have very good bodies. I’d read that.

Other reviewers: Rosario’s Reading Journal, Errant Dreams Reviews, RT Book Reviews, Smexy Books, All About Romance

(Support this site by purchasing this not shitty book through the links below.)

Wicked Prey

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by #1 NYT Bestselling Author John Sandford!
G.P. Putnam Sons (Penguin) 2009

First sentence: Randy Whitcomb was a human stinkpot, a red-haired cripple with a permanent cloud over his head; a gap-toothed, pock-faced, paraplegic crank freak, six weeks out of the Lino Lakes medium-security prison.

Most meaningless sentence: She was a good-looking woman of no particularly identifiable age, who’d taken care to make herself mousy.
Even worse entire paragraph: description of complete contents of character’s wallet, including “a variety of wallet detritus”.
Things I’d rather do than read page 4: eat as many human babies as there are commas in this book.

I like swear words, if not used too gratuitously, and I love swear words directed at children. John Sandford understands this. John Sandford understands me. But unfortunately he put all his work into the first few sentences because the story falls apart before page one is over. He haphazardly shifts the focus from Randy Whitcomb to a tall bearded man and his companion and some sub-sub-sub-story about being in England too long, then to Brutus Cohn, whose name is John Lamb on his passport, then to Rosie Cruz, who is Brutus Cohn’s companion (or is he really John Lamb? Who knows? Who cares?). I was not sure who I was supposed to be paying attention to.

Perhaps the book eventually circles around to the swearing human stinkpot. Hopefully so because Sandford takes care to point out how unremarkable all his other characters are (she was wallpaper, she was background).

Coincidental best use of this book: wallpaper background

On the front flap, The Washington Post says John Sandford’s novels are beloved (which is 1 less than loved) for their “ingenious plots, vivid characters, crisp dialogue, and endless surprises”. I would like to share a sample of this “crisp dialogue”. The background to this crisp dialogue is that there’s a Toyota Camry.

“Ugly car,” he said, as he lifted the suitcase into the trunk…
“The best-selling car in America, in the least attention-getting color,” Cruz said.

If I were a slime mold, growing on a different slime mold, which was itself growing on a stack of putrid rotting cow guts in the soggiest part of the deepest chasm at the bottom of the ocean, I still would not call that “crisp”.

Other reviews: Sonia Reviews, True Crime Book Reviews 

(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through the links below.)

Fall of Giants

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by Ken Follett
Dutton (Penguin) 2010

First Sentence: On the day King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, Billy Williams went down the pit in Aberowen, South Wales.
Worst sentence: This was how the world appeared on the second day of Creation, Billy thought…
Even worse-than-that sentence: Inside the room there was even less to look at.
Gratuitous words that let you know this is historical fiction: gramper, underdrawers, mam, diphtheria, whooping cough, dram (“one of the wheeled tubs that carried coal”), moleskin, skullery, bath night, Ethel
Alternative uses for this book: 1. use to beat children (when they ask for more porridge), 2. use to beat grampers (when he asks for a new wheelchair), 3. flotation device (in the event of water landing, if you survive, which you won’t), 4. insulation

First, if you don’t already know that Westminster Abbey is in London (England) then put this book away now and go check on your baby, because the thing is likely dead in the tub. Remember: a baby can drown in even an inch of water.

Second, if you already knew that Aberowen was in South Wales put this book away because you will feel pandered to. (I thought it was in North Wales, but I was actually thinking of Blaenau Ffestiniog, which is a mistake everyone makes.)

The first character we meet in this book is Billy Williams. That would be William Williams as his Christian name. It’s as if Ken Follett was thinking up character names, and, realizing he has already used every other name in the world in his nine hundred other works, he thought “William….” then got stumped and said, “Aw fuck it. Good enough,” then went for a swim in his money pool.

The second character we meet is Willy William’s father, who he calls “Da”, which is probably a typo caused by Follett’s noiseless typewriter, and therefore the most important artistic contribution to his 5.5 million page oeuvre, or possibly a Welsh dialect. I don’t have time to check. I’m busy.

That’s the first three sentences.

The three pages that follow are mostly description of the poor miners’ humble home, introduction to some issues of masculinity and manhood, and some other stuff I can’t even remember or care to.

The back flap has the following paragraph, by the publisher: “In future volumes of The Century Trilogy, subsequent generations of the same families will travel through the great events of the rest of the twentieth century, changing themselves and the century itself…” I admire Mr. Follett for taking on such an ambitious project. Too bad he writes like an illiterate homeless man with AIDS. Looks good in a tie, though. A little bit better than a homeless man with AIDS. Also, how does he already know it’s a trilogy if he hasn’t even written it yet? Explain that, Mr. Follett!

Other reviews: Sam Still Reading, Bippity Boppity Book, The Lit Witch

(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through the links below.)

Robopocalypse

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by Daniel H. Wilson
Doubleday 2011

First sentence: 
Twenty minutes after the war ends, I’m watching stumpers pour up out of a frozen hole in the ground like ants from hell and praying that I keep my natural legs for another day.

Made-up words: stumpers, hexapods, thrower (for flame-thrower), oddly
Best line: …the hoarse whisper of a hundred thousand explosive mechanical hexapods searching for human victims or …sticky, burning jelly coats the river of death.
Worst line: Spark. Whoomph!
You will enjoy this book if you also enjoyed: The Matrix sequels.

I wanted so much to tell you that this, the first book I am reviewing, is shitty. I specifically selected it for its ridiculous title, which cannot actually be the real title. No editor is that stupid. No editor at Doubleday. This is more like the title of a bad movie (upcoming movie is being directed by Steven Speilberg. Release date 2013).

It’s a familiar story at the beginning: robots rise up against man. Man attempts to fight back with flamethrowers (like in Alien except robots instead of aliens). The first three pages is actually entertaining and easy to follow, not overloaded with technojargon or melodrama, even though it drops the reader straight into a scene in which the main character is attempting to fight off thousands of tiny robotic creatures. Even Wilson’s slightly hackish repeated onomatopoeia, “Spark” doesn’t detract from the experience very much.

However, while I could see myself reading on to page four, I’m pretty sure from the look of the photo on the back flap that Daniel H. Wilson is the author of I Was a Balding Hipster Teenager, not the Carnegie-Mellon PhD in robotics with a wife and a daughter his bio claims.

Through freshly-installed braces: “Hey ladeeshhhhh….I’m shheeking a date for shophomore prom shhhhhkthpt.” (spittle flies everywhere).

No, seriously, I think this might actually be a good book.

You win this round, Daniel H. Wilson! Or should I say, Daniel H. KILL-son!

(Because he killed his son.)

(Not really.)

Other reviews: Grasping for the Wind, Fantasy Book Critic, BookThing, The Mad Hatters
(Support this site by purchasing this shitty book through the links below.)