You make a really great point about the inconsistent names. I cringed a little during that list. Something that always irks me, y'know. The plotline sounds interesting, too, so it's too bad it was rushed... a lot of potential from the sound of it. Alas.
Love your book reviews! I always look forward to these.
Such analyses are actually why I never really regret reading poorly written book: I find that in good novels, all the difficult fine tuned writing work is hard to identify because everything just works perfectly to take you from beginning to end. Whereas in bad stories, problems stick our for you to consider. I mean, I find your writing pretty awesome with the Light & Shadows series, but I have a hard time pinpointing what makes it so. Bad character psychology sort of makes obvious what good psychology can look like (to a certain extent).
Possibly the worst bookseries I've ever read and the most enlightening, was Maximum Ride by James Patterson. Honestly, teen books bestseller by an experienced writer: awfully badly constructed scenario with inconsistencies, dreadful character psychology, and lazy writing. It's like what you said: Nanowrimo-unedited-first-draft-worthy.
That's very true! That's why I also don't mind reading bad books because at least it's a learning experience/exercise in troubleshooting how writing works. Even if it is annoying to end up with something sub-par when I wanted a good read.
I've heard James Patterson is a terrible writer, and that Maximum Ride specifically is really bad. It seems to be that a lot of these prolific young adult/thriller writers are very poor at what they do - Christopher Pike is also terrible at it.
Honestly, I think every writer should know that the "You've been deceived, all that's happened until now was only a dream!" is like THE super dangerous thing in terms of coherency/plausibility of actions. I mean, he does it at one point where the mad scientist says afterwards "look, the surgery mistake that made your hand totally unresponsive never happened, you can use it perfectly, there isn't even any scar!" ... 10 pages later : "oh no wait, it actually wasn't a dream, it was real!"... Hand now works. Tada. (Even Twilight was better written because Stephen Meyer actually didn't even try/manage to make a complicated story she was doomed to mess up
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You make a really great point about the inconsistent names. I cringed a little during that list. Something that always irks me, y'know. The plotline sounds interesting, too, so it's too bad it was rushed... a lot of potential from the sound of it. Alas.
Love your book reviews! I always look forward to these.
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Possibly the worst bookseries I've ever read and the most enlightening, was Maximum Ride by James Patterson. Honestly, teen books bestseller by an experienced writer: awfully badly constructed scenario with inconsistencies, dreadful character psychology, and lazy writing. It's like what you said: Nanowrimo-unedited-first-draft-worthy.
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I've heard James Patterson is a terrible writer, and that Maximum Ride specifically is really bad. It seems to be that a lot of these prolific young adult/thriller writers are very poor at what they do - Christopher Pike is also terrible at it.
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