crimes against humanity

[deborah]

Personally, I've always felt that Kirkus Reviews' reputation for being mean is undeserved. On the other hand, I have to say that I absolutely adore our willingness to tell it like it is. Although in this case, no reviewer commentary was necessary, clearly.

Comments

[jordanwillow]

i... wow. WOW.

[deborah]

I know, right? I think the reviewer who found all of those deserves a cookie to make up for how soul burning it must have been to read the book.

[jordanwillow]

I AGREE!

[tahnan]

The real crime here is that there's no sample chapter online. I'm feeling inspired...

[tahnan]

...wait hold on did I say no sample chapter online? Because actually...

[rantingnerd]

The stupid, it burns. (Hilary Duff, not Kirkus, obviously.)

[deborah]

you mean the stupid of not hiring a decent ghostwriter?

[rantingnerd]

The whole gestalt.

[sanguinity]

That last quote is ew ew ew ew ew ew.

[kumquatmay]

my favorite kirkus quote is still the one for The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy (I should also note, it's the favorite of everyone in my department as well):
"A publishing event that demands an apology to the industry, all children and the trees that gave their lives. "

Though this recent one is pretty good (for A Girl, A Ghost, and the Hollywood Hills):
"That novel, however, saddled with the author's determination to shoehorn in thinly drawn stand-ins for Polonius, Ophelia and Laertes, as well as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and an iMovie version of the Claudius-poisons-King-Hamlet play (starring rowdy Australians), is a hot mess."

[deborah]

Wow. Every time I think I'm a good Kirkus reviewer, I come back to the fact that I can never let my artistry stay with me in a moment of perfect, wonderful, biting cruelty like that.

[deborah]

yeah. I was going to make some pull quotes for my post, and then I realized that the pull quote to use would be that last one, and it made me want to bathe just reading. So I didn't.

[libskrat]

Go Kirkus. *still chuckling and cringing*

[deborah]

what the other review journals call cruelty is usually just our willingness to speak the truth. But in this case I admit there's a certain amount of... Well, Hillary Duff can take it. :)

[lady_schrapnell]

Best review in a long time! :D Nothing could be as effective in this case as a "show it like it is". *shudders*

[deborah]

it's how you know we don't just make it up when we review books this negatively!