It’s the careless remarks that sting the most

Right, so I’m trolling for covers for snarking on Amazon.com, and I stumbled across this review of Patricia Gaffney’s Outlaw in Paradise (which is admittedly one of her less stellar efforts, as her conscious attempts to write funny tend to be):

“It’s ok but not as captivating as a Madeline Baker or Katherine Kincaid book.”

DUDE! Dissed! “Not as captivating as Madeline Baker.” Oucccchhhh.

At least the reviewer didn’t say “Not nearly as good as Connie Mason.”

For bonus wacky funtimes, if you check out the very first review of the book, you’ll see it was written by no other person than…Jennifer Crusie.

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  1. bam says:

    :cheese: dude, can i be a total troll and go “FIRST!”?

  2. Lila says:

    Those Amazon reviews are murder. I feel bad for all those poor readers who look to the wanna-be reviews and lame snark on amazon for their Romance advice.

  3. sherryfair says:

    There’s also a review by Judith Ivory.

  4. Doug says:

    Some pretty harsh slams over there. Sophomoric? Like an eighth grader failing English? As original as a Jennifer Crusie novel with an ugly, winsome dog?

    Okay, so I made up that last one 😉

  5. Candy says:

    sherryfair: Dude! Totally missed the Judith Ivory review.

    While I don’t get the vitriol this book seems to inspire (have those reviewers not read any Cassie Edwards, for the love of Pete?), I don’t get the gushy gushy, either. Because it was a straight up C, C- book.

    Lila: Yeah, those reviews are murder, but as far as providing a snapshot of what a lot of people think about a particular book, I think it’s pretty useful. Before hitting AAR, I hit Amazon just to get a feel for what people are saying about a particular book.

    Doug: HA!

    Bam: YOU TROLL! PREPARE TO FEEL THE POWER OF THE BANHAMMER! (Except, not really.)

  6. The excerpt one of them posted really lends itself to Haiku with a few tweaks….

    “Brain clicked off. Heat, slick.
    Full, do it, get me, Jesse now,
    Flying out over it. Ah.”

  7. Candy says:

    HA! That was brilliant, Mistress Stef.

    The reviewers did have a point—the book seemed to have more sentence fragments than usual, which I found somewhat distracting.

  8. bam says:

    Wow. Does “Jenny Crusie” only give five stars?

  9. Candy says:

    Yeah, I think she only reviewed books she liked on Amazon.

  10. Ann Aguirre says:

    The exerpt reminded me of the Fabio magnets.

  11. Jennifer says:

    It’s nice how fellow authors stick up for each other!

  12. Darla says:

    You all have seen Passion Ann Heet’s Fan Site for the Insanely Great Patricia Gaffney, right?  Passion Ann Heet being, of course, Jenny Crusie.

  13. D.S. says:

    I don’t think the author reviewing thing is any different from giving cover blurbs.  The problem is that if an author gives too many fulsome blurbs to too many bad books the reader stops believing them.  There was a thread some time ago on one site about authors whose blurbs made you put a book back on the rack.

  14. Helen M says:

    Oh, Darla, that site was so funny! Thank you for sharing.

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