Page 75 of Money Shot

So….

On a five star scale, I give ten.

Thank you, Claire.

Thank you.

I stopped typing, studied the screen for a moment, and pressed the button to publish my review. Half a bottle of wine and two reviews later, and I was down to my last review. Of all the books I had read in the last year, I wanted to review this one the least. It was an awful book, terribly disturbing, and not something I would have ever continued to read had I not been persuaded to do so by the author. The thought of writing the review made me feel ill, hence saving it for last.

As much enjoyment as I got out of writing reviews, and as entertaining as I found drafting them to be, one thing I always felt terrible about was when an author asked me personally to read and review a book, and the book ended up being awful. Typically, when I received a book I simply couldn’t get interested in, or if I found it to be poorly written, or something I simply felt I would be incapable of reviewing honestly, I would attempt to get the author to allow me to not review the book.

No harm, no foul, so to speak.

Well, on this particular book, the author refused my request to not review the book, stating that he wanted the book reviewed regardless. In fact, even after I reluctantly finished the book and still didn’t want to review it, he insisted on it.

I want your opinion, he said.

Believe me, you don’t, I responded.

Yet, he insisted.

I walked to the kitchen, realized I was just north of a drunken mess, and opened bottle number two. I fully realized I didn’t need any more wine, but I wanted more. I removed the cork, poured a glass, and re-corked the bottle.

That’ll make sure I don’t overdo it.

I slid the bottle to the side, took a sip from my glass, and stumbled toward the room.

After drinking half the glass of wine in one slurp, I pushed it to the side and began to type.

A Man, a Woman, and a Knife, by Alton Parsons was a book I would not normally read. At the insistence of the author, I went against the grain of my comfort zone and read the book for review.

And.

I can’t brush my teeth enough or drink enough wine to get the foul taste out of my mouth.

*bile rises in throat*

Thinking about this book is making me sick, which is typically okay, but there was no real reason for the scenes that are making me sick to have been in the book. They served no purpose whatsoever.

Don’t get me wrong, I like dark reads. I like books that make me check and double check my front and back doors to make sure they’re locked. I like books that make me cringe, and I love books that make me cough up matter that I wish would have stayed in my stomach.

But.

I despise books that have subject matter randomly inserted into them for no reason, and were clearly done for shock value alone.

In considering what to type next, I began thinking about the book. Thinking about the book caused me to get angry, and my anger immediately turned to thirst. I finished my glass of wine, walked to the kitchen and poured another. Half a glass later, and I was back to writing my review.

“Show, don’t tell”, is good advice to all authors. I have always felt the author should allow the reader into the mind of the character, to some degree. But. Don’t tell me he’s angry, have him cross his arms and kick a rock. Don’t tell me “it was a terribly hot day in Atlanta”, tell me “my breath was nearly sucked from my lungs as we walked out of the airport, and the sun bore down on us like a heavy weight as we walked what seemed like a mile and a half to the parking garage…”

This book is so full of purple prose that it made reading it feel as if I was being told a story in detail in lieu of seeing it happen in my mind.

And, it was full, and I do mean FULL of two hundred pages of graphically detailed violence that need not be in it to tell the story.

After the first chapter I fully understood Barton Sole was an animal, a psychopath, and that he had a temper like a human Tasmanian devil. But to continue to beat a dead horse (or in this case, beat a dead prostitute) in the manner the he did (through, of course, the author’s tale) until her skull was in pieces on the floor and brain matter was on the walls…

I lifted my glass and took another drink.

And another.