Simon Brooke

The cheesy, cliché tagline on the cover: “He's putting his assets on the line--and his heart up for grabs,” should have instantly told me not to pick this book up, but I was distracted by the clever cover. Darn those book marketers. I was further convinced by the London Daily Mail calling the author "An immensely talented comic writer." Perhaps if you're used to reading mail all day, he is immensely talented and comedic . . .

The endorsement that this book was "A black comedy for the Hornby market," should have told me to put it down and walk away without passing GO or collecting my $200 as I've yet to make it through the drivel at the beginning of a Hornby novel. But, alas, I picked it up, bought it, took it home, and promptly got sucked in . . . because I was semi-stranded and needed to have SOMETHING to do.

This book also holds the title for most editing errors that I’ve ever read, quite possibly that has ever been published by a professional publishing house. As if the flat plot and flatter characters weren’t hard enough to stay interested in, the regular occurrences of omitted words and slightly less frequent ADDED words were wholly distracting.

Now that I've sufficiently bashed the book in most of the ways available, let me say that it wasn't that bad. I did actually finish it, so that's already a rung above any Hornby book. For the most part, I spent each page trying to add depth to the characters and the action, trying to make ANY of it mean SOMETHING worth knowing and, thus, rationalize my reading it. But the book fought me every page of the way.

Finally, in the last few of its 367 pages, there was something worth taking away from it. Tiny kernel though it was, it was much better than nothing. And I’m able to put the book away not feeling as though it was entirely a waste of time.… (mais)