The Fate of Mercy Alban
Gabby says:
Fuck this book. I cannot believe that this is the work of an actual professional author, agent, editor, copy editors, and publisher. This author's work is some of the least polished, most poorly written, and my god, repetitive I've ever had the misfortune of forcing myself to read. I'm allowing it one star, because some of the ideas behind it could have been delightfully creepy and gothic. Instead, it's--and I hate using this reviewer's cliche, but it's absolutely apt--a Lifetime movi...e to which I was forced to pay attention, rather than hanging out on Pinterest with it playing in the background, as I MIGHT BE known to occasionally do. And let me just warn any other potential authors out there: if you are going to include excerpts from a novel that is supposed to be the long-lost work of a great writer and is going to blow the literary world to bits with its magnificence, it better be the best damn work of your life. You cannot repeatedly tell your audience how great something is, and then produce excerpts of material that is so laughably weak, it makes the sketches in STUDIO 60 seem like the comedy gold standard. If I was Mercy, I'd want to kill David Coleville just for including the phrase, "What a goof!" in his supposedly edgy, war correspondent prose.In the acknowledgements I found this statement:"Speaking of editing, thank you to the copy editors at Hyperion. I’m sure if you never see another ellipsis followed by 'My words trailed off,' it will be too soon."Those poor, poor copy editors. I didn't have the misfortune of editing in a corporate publishing setting, so I can only imagine what they had to go through to squeeze any depth of language or diversity of phrasing out of an author who repeats the same goddamn adjectives over and over and fucking over. If I never see the word "crisp" again for as long as I live....I was planning on reading Wendy Webb's first book as well, just to see if there's something to her writing that was there for the initial selling, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm too fucking angry that her work not only sold to a publisher, but apparently sells to readers as well, based on Webb's description of going to readings packed with the thrilled, glowing readers of her novels. I paid $1.99 for THE VANISHING on Kindle, and I wish I could demand my money back.I beg of you, Wendy Webb, stop writing and stick to being a Midwestern mother.
blargxitsxjenn says:
Let's call it 2.5 stars- I read the whole thing and was interested in what was happening. The idea was good but the execution was disappointing- it was too cozy to be truly Gothic, and there were lots of sloppy errors that should have been caught by an editor. Why are the members of an old Irish family deeply affiliated with the Lutheran church? Even if from the north wouldn't they be Episcopalian? Would a Lutheran minister really sleep with a woman he just met mere days ago? "Bad" Celtic witches (or bad witches in general) are a tired, sexist cliche and I felt a female journalist author could have put a more nuanced or interesting spin on the evil here. Maybe her first book was better and she was rushed writing this one.MoreLess
Fuck this book. I cannot believe that this is the work of an actual professional author, agent, editor, copy editors, and publisher. This author's work is some of the least polished, most poorly written, and my god, repetitive I've ever had the misfortune of forcing myself to read. I'm allowing it one star, because some of the ideas behind it could have been delightfully creepy and gothic. Instead, it's--and I hate using this reviewer's cliche, but it's absolutely apt--a Lifetime movi...e to which I was forced to pay attention, rather than hanging out on Pinterest with it playing in the background, as I MIGHT BE known to occasionally do. And let me just warn any other potential authors out there: if you are going to include excerpts from a novel that is supposed to be the long-lost work of a great writer and is going to blow the literary world to bits with its magnificence, it better be the best damn work of your life. You cannot repeatedly tell your audience how great something is, and then produce excerpts of material that is so laughably weak, it makes the sketches in STUDIO 60 seem like the comedy gold standard. If I was Mercy, I'd want to kill David Coleville just for including the phrase, "What a goof!" in his supposedly edgy, war correspondent prose.In the acknowledgements I found this statement:"Speaking of editing, thank you to the copy editors at Hyperion. I’m sure if you never see another ellipsis followed by 'My words trailed off,' it will be too soon."Those poor, poor copy editors. I didn't have the misfortune of editing in a corporate publishing setting, so I can only imagine what they had to go through to squeeze any depth of language or diversity of phrasing out of an author who repeats the same goddamn adjectives over and over and fucking over. If I never see the word "crisp" again for as long as I live....I was planning on reading Wendy Webb's first book as well, just to see if there's something to her writing that was there for the initial selling, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm too fucking angry that her work not only sold to a publisher, but apparently sells to readers as well, based on Webb's description of going to readings packed with the thrilled, glowing readers of her novels. I paid $1.99 for THE VANISHING on Kindle, and I wish I could demand my money back.I beg of you, Wendy Webb, stop writing and stick to being a Midwestern mother.
blargxitsxjenn says:
Let's call it 2.5 stars- I read the whole thing and was interested in what was happening. The idea was good but the execution was disappointing- it was too cozy to be truly Gothic, and there were lots of sloppy errors that should have been caught by an editor. Why are the members of an old Irish family deeply affiliated with the Lutheran church? Even if from the north wouldn't they be Episcopalian? Would a Lutheran minister really sleep with a woman he just met mere days ago? "Bad" Celtic witches (or bad witches in general) are a tired, sexist cliche and I felt a female journalist author could have put a more nuanced or interesting spin on the evil here. Maybe her first book was better and she was rushed writing this one.MoreLess
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Guest 5 years ago
Wow....never read a book with such a gripping story line ...loved all thoes details about the family history and stuffWrite Review:
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