Dare Me by Megan Abbott

"Something happened, Addy."

So instead of showing the something we begin with telling us something happened. I actually know that something must happen or what is the book about? Better to begin with the something, which I would presume is the hook, at least I hope it is.

The rest of the first paragraph is:

"I think you better come."

In other words, "Addy, hurry up! The novel is beginning! Where are you? Get over to page 1 as quickly as you can! Like, now!"

Then:

The air is heavy, misted, fine.

Isn't this a bit of a contradiction of terms? Heavy and fine. Something can't be both heavy and fine, unless fine means okay or nice. Oh well, I guess we'll never know for sure what is meant. Cryptic sentences like this is what can lead to hours of discussion by bored, drunken, disillusioned writers all over the world. Plus, listing the adjectives like that, gives them a sense of isolation, as if each wields a power all its own, which means this is an attempt at the artsy-fartsy but fails - of course.

There's still more confusion with what comes next:

It's coming on two a.m. and I'm high on the ridge, thumb jammed against the silver button 27-G.

Then the person is buzzed in and presto! she's in the lobby. But I thought she was high on the ridge. Hm? Like the fool I am, I actually googled ridge to see if there is some urban slang term perhaps used by thirteen-year old girls in northern Saskatchewan who are afraid of heights and have freckles or something. I couldn't find anything except what ridge actual means: a long narrow hilltop, mountain range, or watershed. So I don't understand how this character goes from a ridge to a lobby.

Then we get some poor grammar:

...Beth and me wedged tight...

Anyway after this short prologue in which we learn nothing but that the narrator is somewhat hysterical, we come to chapter 1:

Four months ago
After a game, it takes a half hour under the showerhead to get all the hairspray out.

Of course chapter one does not continue where the prologue leaves off. I wonder if this is the hook, the conflict, because a full half hour in the shower is dangerous for the skin, not to mention all that hairspray which can cause heart palpitations, nausea, dehydration and tumors. Then:

To peel off all the sequins...
Sometimes you stand under the hot gush for so long, looking at your body, counting every bruise.

God, how I love this crap. I love to learn about new ways to abuse the English language. It's all about the reader - you - for the first page, and what you do under the hot gush. Another Calvino in the making?

You're really just trying to get your heart to slow down. [That's what too much hairspray will do]
You think, this is my body and I can make it do things. I can make it spin, flip, fly.
After, you stand in front of the steaming mirror... [A steaming mirror is a fire hazard]
You don't look like anybody at all.

Personally, I don't look at my body in the hot gush. When I take a hot gush, I keep my eyes closed. But then again, I only usually take a five-minute hot gush, not a half hour hot gush. Come to think of it, after writing this paragraph, I'm beginning to feel dirty and am desirous of taking a hot gush.

Then one more peculiar sentence:

At first, cheer was something to fill my days, all our days.

Mine too?  Woe! I mean, wow!

The Book of Peculiar Sentences would be a more apt title for this crapola. However, without any obvious cliches in the opening, the worst I can give this is a 2-star fail. I will read on, out of respect for the newest member of the Horrible Writers Club.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

I found a funny comment in Goodreads that sheds more light on this book's writing:

I can't even go far enough in this book to find out the premise. I do not even care. This is god awful. This is the worst kind of writing (edit: FINE. THE WORST KIND to me. I suppose you're allowed to like it). So many analogies that don't actually even MEAN ANYTHING. You can't just... say things... and call it writing.

"wishbone arms?" What do you mean by that? What is that? So, what? They're... all bowed out? They're skinny? They're dried out like after it comes out of a turkey and sits for a while? They're IN THE MIDDLE OF A BIRD?

"hair like a long taffy pull" - okay, so... it's sticky hair? It's wide at one end, and then at the other end it's all thinned out and white and stringy?

YOU CAN'T JUST SAY WORDS THAT SOUND PRETTY AND "AUTHORY" AND CALL IT WRITING. THEY NEED TO MEAN ACTUAL THINGS. 

How to Fall in Love by Cecelia Ahern

How to Talk a Man Down

They say lightning never strikes twice.

Great, begin with a cliched phrase that belongs to the world, has no copyright and betrays a lack of creativity.

Next line:

Untrue.

Next line:

Well, it's true that people say it; it's just untrue as a fact.

I think we are supposed to laugh. In any case, tell us something we already know. Not very gripping and certainly not the way to hook the reader. With this type of fiction, the so-called chick-lit genre,  it is more important to establish the tone and attitude before introducing the story that is conflict and character. All I can say is that I'm glad the masses are finally tiring of this.

What comes next is what looks like a copied and pasted encyclopedic article about lightening and the odds of striking things. NASA-funded scientists discovered that cloud-to-ground lightning frequently strikes the ground in two or more places and that the chances of being struck are about forty-five per cent higher than what people assume.

The tone, like, totally, changes, girl. Like, really.

Anyway, after that comes paragraph 3 with some different tone and a weather report. The narrator says she found herself somewhere she had never been before and then goes on to explain that that is not a metaphor for a new psychological space, but that she is in a new geographically new place. Really. Talk about over explaining.

Despite the narrative mood swings, scientific information dumps, weather reports and back story, there is a scene buried in chapter 1, in which the narrator tries to talk some guy out of killing himself, but it is all telling and poor Simon, the suicide guy, sees no way out of this novel other than put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. Fortunately, for the rest of us, all we need to do is close it to be rid of it.

First thing said:

"Oscar."

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney

Janie finished her essay.

The end. Not. We should be so lucky.

After a thorough academic analysis, we may with confidence conclude that this line does not hook. How could it be expected to pull a reader in? It does not introduce conflict, nor does it even foreshadow conflict. All it does is introduce the protagonist and let us know by way of inference that this person is a student. Yawn.

The next paragraph makes an effort to force some useless conflict down our throats:

She never knew what grade she would get in Mr. Brylowe's English class. Whenever she joked, he wanted the essay serious. Whenever she was serious, he had intended the essay to be lighthearted.

There is an easy way to fix this kids: Pay attention in class! Next paragraph:

It was October.

Next paragraph (though why we need to start a new paragraph, as we are still on the same topic of season, is beyond me. Could it be for dramatic effect, even though there is nothing dramatic about it being October in itself?):

Outdoors throbbed with autumn.

I appreciate when writers try to be creative, but there is a fine line between success and failure, genius and stupidity. This fails and/or is stupid, take your pick. The outdoors, i.e. weather/season throbbed? It sounds funny and just a little disturbing. Imagine this conversation:

Mom: Go outside, Janie.
Janie: Ah, Mom, do I have to, it's throbbing outside.

Or:

"Hey, Bob, can you take a look out the window and see if it's throbbing out. Thanks, man."
"It is."
"Okay, so should I wear a striped shirt, or do you think flannel is better when it's throbbing outdoors?"

The paragraph goes on about the pulse of the sky and leaves being wrenched off twigs, before ending with:

She felt like driving for hours: taking any road at all: just going.

I think those are colons. They could be semi-colons; in any case, they are wrong. So the last sentence of that paragraph has nothing to do with the beginning of the paragraph, describing the weather. Since writing is usually determined good or bad at the paragraph level, we can safely call this bad writing.

The next paragraph has a shocking twist: But Janie can't drive yet! That's right, she's only having driving fantasies (so this only fantasizes about the car opening cliche) because of dinner last night. Enter flashback: A scene in which we learn that Janie's father doesn't want her to drive but her mother does. Her father thinks she's too young and says that he hates all this growing up (she's 15). I can just imagine him saying to Janie while she's writing essays: What are you doing? Stop growing up; go out and roll around in the mud like my little five-year-old used to do. I mentioned essays because I now have no idea why this book had to begin with essays and then steer off course with weather, seasons, driving fantasies and serious hair.

Serious hair? Yeah, as weird as this sounds, as the father is talking at the dinner table, he: ...wound some of Janie's hair around his wrist.

It's creepy enough for a father to sit at the dinner table and play with his fifteen-year-old daughter's hair with his finger, but wrapping her hair around his wrist? What the...? However, never fear, this is the author's "clever" way of introducing the world to Janie's hair and how her friends say: Janie, that is serious hair.

Which makes the beginning of chapter 5 make a little more sense:

The kiss was long.

And serious.

Serious like my hair, thought Janie. She stared amazed at Reeves's cheek, which was pressed against hers, and with amazement brought her lips together to kiss him again - to start the second kiss, and to choose when to end it.

I'm not sure I'd compare a kiss's seriousness to hair. Anyway, that line tells me that this Janie is very self-absorbed and a bit of an idiot. Here she is sharing an intimate moment with a boy and all she can think of is: That kiss is serious like my hair. What, is the kiss about her and her hair? Is that all she can think about when kissing: her hair?

The other thing that makes no sense, is how does one stare at someone else's cheek when it is pressed against one's own cheek? What does it mean: she stared amazed? Maybe: she stared amazedly? Or: She stared and was amazed? Could she be staring off into space and is amazed at staring off into nothingness? Is Reeve's cheek amazing her? Personally, I think she's more dazed than amazed.

Plus, closing your lips to kiss is what one does when one is about to kiss grandma, not a boyfriend/girlfriend. I'm confused: is this girl fifteen or five?

The next paragraph begins thus:

Very slowly her hands crept [Like Wile E. Coyote?] around his face, finding the back of his neck where his hair lay thick over the pulse.

So this dude has a throbbing pulse on the back of his neck? He might want to get that looked at - it might be a tumor.

First thing said:

"She's just a baby."

Verdict: Epic Fail

So this book and writer has earned a place on my private blog: Horrible Writers Club.

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Spilled Blood by Brian Freeman

Prologue

Hobbled by a flat tire, Ashlynn's fire-orange Mustang convertible limped to a stop on the main street of the abandoned farm town.

What a weird sentence. Hobbled is the past participle form of the verb which in this case indicates passive voice, not wrong, mind you, just not really right either. Can a person be hobbled by something? Hey, Dad, Tommy hobbled me again!

You need to think it out for a second. (I took less than that though). Hobble and limp are synonyms so I suppose we should be lucky he didn't write: Limped by a flat tire, because then the problem becomes obvious.

The personification is funny, too. A car limping onto the main street of a farm town. I have an image of a cartoon, something like Susie the Car, though she's blue.

I've never heard a rural town called a farm town. It makes me think of a town with a series of farms on the main street. Having been once rural myself, I have heard the term farming town. I assume farm town is some local expression, though when I google "farm town", I only get a plethora of computer games.

The next paragraph describes said farm town. You don't need to read it if you have imagination enough to imagine what a ruined ghost town would look like. In fact, it's better if you don't read the description, since you'll understand the scene better by not reading it. It's almost midnight, and the protagonist (it's that person's POV) is able to see little details like dirty shards of glass in the gravel. No matter how bright the moon is, moonlight doesn't shine as brightly as the sun at high noon. Even at high noon, who would notice dirty glass in gravel? This isn't the only example of descriptive incongruities in this so far (and I hate to contradict Lisa Gardner's plug at the back of the book, but...) very non-gripping and non-moving thriller. Though, so far it is shocking - for a grammatician, which me ain't.

Chapter one:

Christopher Hawk drove west on Highway 7 into the emptiness of rural Minnesota, leaving civilization behind him with each mile away from the city.

Christopher Hawk? What a name. It's only slightly better than Steve Stifler or Tugg Speedman and slightly worse than Buck Rogers.

Then there is the second part of this sentence: ...leaving civilization behind him with each mile away from the city. The author is abusing the usage of "away", an adverb which means: from this or that place, or in or to another place or direction, or toward another direction, and it modifies a verb. The problem is there is no verb "away" can modify in the above clause. So it sounds like each mile is away from the city? You can be a mile away from the city but each mile can not really be away from the city. Well, technically they can be away: This mile is away from the city. I hope that doesn't make sense to you. It should be: ...with each mile Hawk drives away from the city.

I'd just delete the delinquent, offending word "away".  In any case, the phrase is awkward, and the sentences don't get better with practice, as shown in the next one:

Staring at the horizon between his windshield wipers, he could have sworn the world was flat, and he hoped there was a sign ahead to warn him before he sped off the edge of the earth.

...horizon between his windshield wipers...is speaking figuratively or literally? Take your pick. It sounds like the horizon is literally between the wipers, but that's not possible. It must be speaking figuratively; though, in a sense if you wrote the sentence with clarity, the horizon is between the wipers, though off in the distance from them. The sentence is written in two-dimensional terms when it needs to be in three-dimensional terms, so to speak. So this sentence is not quite literal and not quite figurative. What is it then? Figurlitlively?

And unless he's hallucinating, why would Hawk hope there is a sign up ahead warning him about the edge of the earth? Or is this supposed to be a joke?

By paragraph two the writer succumbs to his skill level as a writer and describes the weather with expressions like bumpy clouds and swollen ditches. How does a ditch get swollen, that is, bigger than it was, when in fact, the water is overflowing or swelling out of it? When a pot overflows, we don't say the pot is swollen.

Of course throughout these openings we have no conflict (except for a limping car) and little characterization (except for a cross-eyed dweeb with no depth perception). Tone? Uh-uh, unless you want to count the horrible attempts at figurative gymnastic attempts at bad poetic poetry, which I literally mean figuratively.

First thing said:

"Hello?"

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird